Edwynn Houk Gallery is presenting "Ron Norsworthy: American Dream," the artist's second solo exhibition at the gallery, running through December 23. The exhibition explores the domestic interiors of Black middle-class life through scenes that oscillate between achievement and aspiration, offering a complex view of contemporary American life.
The centerpiece of the exhibition consists of ten collaged reliefs created from photographs layered up to four inches thick (approximately ten centimeters). These works deliberately expose their construction through raw plywood edges, reflecting both the labor involved in social mobility and the staging that makes such progress visible. The exhibition also features three new works titled "Layer Maps," which represent a fresh extension of Norsworthy's artistic process. Each work on paper translates the stratification of the reliefs into precise studies, cut into flat color planes.
At first glance, Norsworthy's interiors appear orderly and composed, but their stability quickly begins to waver. Walls lean at impossible angles, mirrors multiply and fragment, and staircases lead toward invisible stories. The architecture seems to possess consciousness, functioning as both material and metaphor, revealing the tension between aspiration and artifice. Figures glide through these fractured rooms, caught between movement and reflection, inhabiting what W.E.B. Du Bois described as "double consciousness."
In Norsworthy's constructed worlds, fragments from art history, cinema, design, and personal memory coexist on equal footing. Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams from the film "Mahogany," Grant Wood's "Young Corn," the Black Jesus from the television show "Good Times," and lilies cultivated in the artist's own garden all belong to the same visual vocabulary. The resulting vision is simultaneously intimate and collective, nourished by the shared imagery of American visual culture.
Norsworthy approaches photography as both a material and cultural language that has long shaped how America represents itself. Since its inception, the medium has not merely reflected the American Dream but has actively contributed to constructing it, producing images of prosperity, belonging, and self-invention that continue to define the nation's image. His constructions expose the scaffolding that supports these ideals, bringing to the forefront photography's physical presence while revealing both visible and invisible structures that sustain the dream.
Through this fusion of the visual and social, "American Dream" reveals photography not as a simple reflection but as a structure—the vessel through which America represents and shapes itself. The exhibition demonstrates how visual culture continues to play a fundamental role in constructing national identity and personal aspiration.
"Ron Norsworthy: American Dream" runs through December 23, 2025, at Edwynn Houk Gallery, located at 693 Fifth Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10022. Additional information is available at www.houkgallery.com.
