READING, PA.- The Reading Public Museum is curently exhibiting Ayana Ross: When You Came, on view in The Museum’s Irvin and Lois Cohen Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art since February 17 through to June 2, 2024.

This engaging body of recent work by Atlanta-area contemporary figurative painter Ayana Ross (b. 1977) reflects her wide range of inspirations. In the exhibit of more than a dozen works, Ross enlists everyday figures, which are informed by the events in her family’s own history over generations rooted in the American South. The artist captures poignant, sometimes nostalgic, moments that address broader issues of identity, race, family, and memory. Her large-scale compositions often include monumental figures and messages that feel like modern-day parables, expressing universal truths.

Ross was the recipient of the prestigious Bennett Prize (2021), which supports a stand-out contemporary female figurative painter, and, most recently, was named a Mellon Arts Practitioner at the Center for Race Indigeneity and Transnational Migration at Yale University (2024). The artist earned a B.S. in Apparel Design and Merchandising from Georgia Southern University, an M.A. in Liberal Arts from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and an M.A. in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design. In addition to a career in the fashion industry, Ross also taught art in public schools and the private sector. She has exhibited her work at the Muskegon Museum of Art, the Arnot Museum of Art, and the Bo Bartlett Center, among others.

Learn by Doing! For more than a century, the Reading Public Museum has been at the forefront of hands-on learning. RPM’s enthusiasm for providing rich, tactile experiences sparks curiosity and learning for visitors of all ages in the areas of science, art, history, and more!

A Classroom Collection

Dr. Levi W. Mengel, founder and first director of the Reading Public Museum, wholeheartedly believed in the value of a “sensory education.” As a teacher at Boys' High School in the Reading School District, Dr. Mengel used his personal collection of antiquities in his teaching to help bring history alive for his students in the early 1900s. He recognized that young minds hunger for active participation and personal experience, and he continued collecting scientific and anthropological materials to use as teaching aids.

Thanks to donations from Dr. Mengel and nearly 2,000 pieces acquired at the St. Louis World’s Fair, Reading students could see, touch, and learn about objects from around the globe. In 1907, the third floor of the Reading School District administration building was converted into a museum to provide students with exciting hands-on learning experiences.