Lightning Talk: Karen Kurczynski on the Drawings of Laylah Ali

March 27, 2025 11:40 am - 11:50 am ET
HFA Day Schedule HFA Day Schedule

Professor Karen Kurczynski will be giving a Lightning Talk for HFA Days on the drawings of Laylah Ali, corresponding with the UMCA's spring exhibition on Ali. See more info below!

Thursday, March 27: Faculty Lightning Talks 11:00-1:00

Bromery Center for the Arts Lobby

HFA Faculty Lightning Talks invite HFA faculty to present on their ongoing research and creative projects during a "lightning" discussion of 10 minutes each.

11:40-11:50 “Power in Play: The Drawings of Laylah Ali”

Karen Kurczynski, History of Art and Architecture

Laylah Ali’s drawings, on view at the University Museum of Contemporary Art in Spring 2025, take inspiration from activist art, cartoons, and racial politics to create imaginative figures that celebrate the odd, the speculative, and the queer, in all senses of the term. Addressing what she calls “the disconnect between bodies and freedom,” her works comment on her own emotional experience and that of all kinds of people who struggle against labels and lack of recognition. This talk describes the ways she uses drawing to convey affective states and ideas, from color and composition to linear gesture and hand-written text.