Exhibition Guide

Visual Description

“Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between” is a vertical oil painting on canvas, measuring 100 inches by 67 inches, of two young adult femme-presenting figures holding hands. They stand side-by-side in the foreground of the painting with their backs turned to the viewer, though the figure at right looks back over her left shoulder and looks out at the viewer. Her expression is calm, possibly inquisitive.  The figure facing away from the viewer looks towards a launching rocket. A plume of rocket exhaust vertically traces the left edge of the canvas while curving slightly to the right. The skin tones of both figures are rendered in grayscale. They both stand barefoot in a vast field of short, yellow grass. The field is barren except for two short black-and-white striped poles in the far-right distance. Along the horizon line, which is situated in the bottom quarter of the painting and is roughly aligned with the figures’ knees, are faintly rendered peaks, appearing like smoke plumes or mountains far in the distance. Glimpses of a blue sky can be seen behind a thin haze of white clouds or smog. The light falls from the right, casting shadows of the poles and figures to the left. 

The figure on the right wears a flowy, knee-length dress that features four horizontal strips of bright, citrus-like colors from top to bottom: pink, orange, yellow, and green. The straps and top hem of the dress are white, as is the ribboned headband the woman wears around her head, which is fashioned in a bow above the center of her forehead. Her dark, curly hair is held up in a high bun, and her curled fringe falls just above her brow. She clasps the other figure’s right hand with her left, their interlocking fingers falling close to her thigh. Her feet face to the left with their right heel popped up. The figure on the left wears a white T-shirt tucked into a high-waisted blue denim skirt and has dark, close-cropped curly hair. Her two bare feet are planted firmly on the ground and are angled away from the viewer.

 

Artwork Label

A turning point in Sherald’s work, this painting shows a remarkable shift in its figures’ near-human scale and the complexity of its composition. Sherald’s view has expanded to encompass a detailed landscape. Here, two young Black figures exist within an atmosphere of suspended possibility.

The title evokes both flight and transition—the machinery of ascent and the distances that separate earth from sky. As with much of Sherald’s work, the portrait resists fixed identity; instead, it locates the subjects in a realm of interior imagination, where selfhood expands beyond imposed limits.

The painting reflects Sherald’s interest in the metaphor of space travel as both literal and psychic departure. A refusal of gravity, of history’s weight, and of prescriptive narratives of Black life. The “spaces in between” become zones of freedom, invention, and dreaming.