MT. VERNON, ILLINOIS.-A significant exhibition by four major African-American artists will be featured at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts beginning November 19. Telling Tales: Narrative Threads in Contemporary African-American Art presents the works of Amalia Amaki, Willie Cole, Mildred Howard and Najjar Abdul-Mussawir, each of whom will examine the important role storytelling has played and continues to play within the context of African-American visual expression. In the Mitchell Museum’s Main Gallery, the show continues through January 1, 2006.

The artists will create an installation using a variety of media that speaks to the significance of narrative in their art. Their works range from digital prints to found objects and from constructed sculptures to painting and drawing. Amalia Amaki’s work examines the dynamics and ambivalence of skin color, particularly as it impacts racial identification and other cultural assumptions. In the autobiographical work Me, Myself and 12 Hours, Amaki addresses the physical, psychological and visual experiences of solitary road trips by an African-American woman driving the interstate highways. An artist and scholar based in Newark, Delaware, and Atlanta, Georgia, Amaki holds a Ph.D. in American Art and Culture from Emory University in Atlanta.

Willie Cole uses discovered materials to convey his ideas and to consider themes based on African traditions and African-American spirituality, history and culture. His installation And Every Now and Then investigates issues of spirituality and faith, religion and popular culture and the at times complicated nature of good and evil. Cole received his B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in New York and is based in Mine Hill, New Jersey. His works are in the permanent collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Norton Museum of Art, among others.

Mildred Howard draws from a wide range of historical and contemporary sources to reference African-American folk culture. SS (Slave Stealer), a literal railroad constructed from gold-leafed tracks, evokes the cherished oral and historical narrative of the Underground Railroad and other struggles for freedom. Howard lives and works in Berkeley, California, and holds an M.F.A. from John Kennedy University in Orinda, California. Her work is in the permanent collections of the San Jose Museum of Art, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art and Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington.

Najjar Abdul-Mussawir is deeply committed to the art of painting, his religious faith and social concerns that affect the African-American community and all of humanity. The subjects of his compelling and beautiful canvases range across such diverse themes as the battle against breast cancer, chapters in the Qur’an and environmental issues. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Design at SIU-Carbondale, where he received his M.F.A. in painting. Telling Tales was co-organized by the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington and Cedarhurst Center for the Arts.