Views of Morrell / McKinley Wallace III
Gallery CA
Opening Reception: Friday, July 26, 6-9pm

2019

Views of Morrell Park is a solo exhibition by McKinley Wallace III, showcasing a series of site-specific mixed media narratives about racial and economic turbulence in Morrell Park, a community in southwest Baltimore. In this exhibition, viewers will take notice of honest and meticulous, landscape interiors of various sizes, desires from the community, and activist posters created by McKinley Wallace III’s middle school youth.

Since he began working in Morrell Park as an art instructor at Access Art, Inc., he learned that this small and historically white neighborhood is slowly becoming more culturally and ethnically diverse. In Baltimore alone, diversity has become a controversial euphemism that changes depending on who is talking about it. What does diversity currently mean for Baltimore? Equity and inclusion seem to have become more relevant topics.

Like Wallace’s past work in his Respond and Under Blue series, Views of Morrell Park continues a conversation with viewers about what diversity and inclusion mean to them, what challenges come along with it, and how they, as residents and visitors, would respond if they were present within his charged and inconclusive paintings.