Inman Gallery presents selections from David McGee's Avenging Angels portrait series. Armed and dressed for high society, the women are accompanied by birds, fruits, and butterflies: symbols of messengers, temptations, and ancestral spirits. A force to be reckoned with, the Avenging Angels pay homage to the strategies Black women implement to survive and flourish.
Taking inspiration from art history, Shakespearean theatre and popular culture (specifically 1970s Blaxploitation films), McGee depicts these women in nonspecific settings infused with natural elements to emphasize a direct connection with the natural world: it is in this space where they strategize their own way forward. McGee presents the viewer with a cast of empowered women who take matters into their own hands to create or craft their own existence.
David McGee (b. 1962, Lockhart, Louisiana) was raised in Detroit, Michigan and moved to Texas in the 1980s, where he established a multifaceted practice that examines the tangled narratives of art history, the mutable nature of language, and the politics of race and class.
His debut institutional survey, David McGee: The Griot and the Nightingale will open Fall 2025 at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art (Charlotte, NC), organized by Katia Zavistovski, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
McGee lives and works in Houston, Texas.