Library Street Collective is pleased to present a group exhibition with Conrad Egyir, Lizzy Lunday, Hannah Lupton Reinhard and Alexandria Smith, titled Sacred Masses and opening January 11, 2025. Imbuing contemporary figures with a mythical and sometimes enigmatic energy, the presented paintings examine the spiritual evolutions that occur as individuals and communities navigate identity, maintain connections to their origins, and seek belonging and empowerment in the face of adversity.

Egyir’s work captures the diasporan journey, weaving together the fraught history of Black America with spiritual reflections on tides as symbols of transition and renewal. His figures, depicted in moments of fellowship and quiet perseverance, are bathed in luminous light, suggesting the presence of unseen forces, spirits, or divinity—guiding them toward transformation. Exploring notions of selfhood, Smith’s depictions of cosmic realms hint at moments of transfiguration, where forces of creation and destruction converge. Hybrid, polymorphic figures occupy her landscapes, while an imaginative, futurist approach to the canvas imagines alternate worlds of liberation and hybridity beyond the constraints of linear time.

Through the layering of bright, transparent pigment, Lupton-Reinhard’s painting introduces a contemporary feminine sensibility to ritual and biblical narratives, depicting sisters, nuzzled together under the cover of floral shadows, protecting each other from the unknown world. Demanding the viewer's attention through the gazes of the figures, the work is adorned with a decorative application of Swarovski crystals, creating unexpected moments of light and texture that dissolve the boundary between the real and unreal. Similar to Lupton Reinhard’s, Lunday’s bright palettes and her dynamic visual language welcome viewers into spectacles where individual and environment are in constant, cyclical dialogue. She probes the constant stream of digital images to uncover the modern-day mythologies that influence our conceptions of self, with serialized notions of femininity, masculinity, vulnerability, and intimacy performed by figures that seem to exist in a space between reality and artifice.

Sacred Masses draws on the traditional meaning of religious gatherings and, within the context of the exhibition, more pointedly references the concept of a body of people—a shared reference point for the figures depicted across the featured works, whether these groups are united by race, religion, gender, or spirituality. Integrated within a shared physical space, the four artists’ distinct painterly expressions and material approaches—all of which are decidedly rich and bold—introduce a dynamic energy which elevates their subjects from the everyday into realms of ethereal, kaleidoscopic beauty.

Sacred Masses is on view from January 11—March 8, 2025 at Library Street Collective.