Guest curator Rebecca VanDiver discusses the work of LaToya M. Hobbs

Dr. Rebecca VanDiver, associate professor of African American art at Vanderbilt University discusses her push to bring the work of LaToya M. Hobbs to Nashville. Carving a New Tradition showcases a selection of recent prints and mixed-media artwork from the studio of the Arkansas-born, Baltimore-based painter and printmaker. Hobbs is a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a founding member of Black Women of Print, an artistic collective aimed at rendering the work of Black women printmakers-past, present, and future-visible.
Her monumental woodcarving Carving Out Time anchors this exhibition and highlights her ongoing explorations of Black womanhood, identity, and artistic legacy that reverberate through the other artworks on view. Hobbs honors the rich traditions of printmaking and her Black artistic foremothers while pushing medium’s boundaries, exhibiting the matrix as object and incorporating mixed-media elements.