Jova Lynne: The Language of Color
01.30.26 – 04.04.26
Opening Reception: Friday, January 30, 7-10PM
At the core of The Language of Color is the idea that color produces meaning, rather than merely representing it. Detroit-based multidisciplinary artist Jova Lynne explores this concept through photography, video, installation, and sound—drawing from Caribbean diasporic experience, material culture, and Black musical traditions to examine how histories are recorded, mythologized, and passed on.
Red and blue appear throughout the exhibition as foundational sources—much like rhythm and tone in music, or vibration in the cosmos. Blue moves through the space as a frequency of continuity, depth, and expansion. Red emerges as an equally generative force. Often coded as alarm or anger, red is reconsidered here as a site of vitality, joy, and insistence.
She draws from sources like Miles Davis’s All Blues and Sun Ra’s theory of cosmic vibration, where sound and color act as carriers of knowledge across time and space. Her references bring together scientific concepts of resonance and frequency with oral history, ritual, and visual symbolism. Color is treated not as surface, but as an energetic condition—something that travels, accumulates, and reverberates over time. Like musical tones that linger and overlap, memories and histories persist through repeated encounters, shaping perception long after their point of origin.
The Language of Color invites viewers to reflect on the shifting relationship between self, lineage, and collective memory. Color becomes a living language shaped by time, sound, and vibration—activated through presence, attention, and return.
About the Artist:
Jova Lynne holds an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BA in Film/Video from Hampshire College. Lynne’s recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include The Color of You at the Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art (2026), Convergence at Sculpture Center in Cleveland (2024), and Split at Matéria Gallery in Detroit (2023). Her work has also been featured in major group exhibitions such as the Kingston Biennial at the National Gallery of Jamaica (2024), Luminosity at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History (2025), and State of the Art II, a nationally touring exhibition presented at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and partnering institutions (2020–2022). Lynne has held residencies and fellowships at Yaddo (2024), Anderson Ranch Arts Center (2022), Mass MoCA (2020), Halcyon Arts Lab (2020), Vermont Studio Center (2020), and Loghaven (2026). Her work is included in major collections such as the Harvard Art Museums, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Cranbrook Art Museum, the Wedge Collection, and the Progressive Art Collection. Lynne’s practice has been profiled in The New York Times, ArtForum, HyperAllergic, Document Journal, The Detroit News, and Runner Magazine, among others. She lives and works in Detroit, MI.
