March 21–August 16, 2026
Created during a journey through the Mississippi Delta, California-based photographer Chanell Stone’s (American, b. 1992) large-scale, monochromatic photographs invite reflection on the Mississippi River as both a natural force and a historical passageway. In the works presented here, drawn from Stone’s series Undulation of a Rupture, the artist turns to the river and its surrounding ecologies as a conduit through which to trace her own ancestry and to reckon with the waterway’s central role in the transatlantic slave trade.
The scale of the photographs and their impenetrable, absorbing tones echo the river’s immensity and depth, drawing viewers into an encounter with water that is opaque, forceful, and alive. As Stone reflects, these works “foreground histories long subdued, silenced, and removed from the contemporary North American landscape.”
About the Artist
Chanell Stone is a California-based artist working bi-regionally between Northern and Southern California. Her practice explores Blackness as both subject and medium, interweaving personal histories within collective narratives of the African diaspora. Through self-portraiture and pictorial abstraction, Stone examines the body’s manifold relationship to the natural world.
Stone earned her MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego, and her BFA in Photography from the California College of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her debut solo exhibition, Natura Negra, was presented at the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco (2019–2020). Recent exhibitions include presentations at the Carnegie Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Pier 24 Photography; Esker Foundation, Alberta; Museo Cabañas, Guadalajara; and Fotografiska New York. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, FOAM, and Aperture.
Featured at top right: Chanell Stone, River Standing (detail), 2022. Archival Pigment Print. San Diego Museum of Art; Museum purchase with funds from the Bequest of Dr. Janet Brody Esser, 2024.49.
