Lavett Ballard: a Rose is a Rose is a Rose
On view August 21, 2025 – March 29, 2026
Benter Foundation Gallery, 2nd floor, Staircase
About the Exhibition
Lavett Ballard: a Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a poetic play of mixed media assemblages—varying in shape, scale, and texture—grounded in Ballard’s richly layered narrative style. Through her signature use of reclaimed wooden fences, collage, and historical imagery, this exhibition explores the intersections of womanist theologies, materiality, and representations of Black femininity across time.
The exhibition’s title, a Rose is a Rose is a Rose, draws inspiration from cultural icons including August Wilson, Aretha Franklin, and Gertrude Stein—each of whom used “Rose” as a symbol for/of beauty, transformation, and truth. Stein’s famous line, “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,” from her 1913 poem Sacred Emily, became one of her most famous quotes alluding to the common expression “it is what it is” and Shakespeare’s popular declaration of love from Romeo and Juliet: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
In this context, “rose” becomes a rhythmic refrain that echoes Lavett Ballard’s first encounter of August Wilson’s character Rose Maxson in Fences, a woman who evolves from quiet devotion to fierce clarity, embodying themes of responsibility, forgiveness, and self-knowledge. Similarly, it carries through Aretha Franklin’s 1998 single “A Rose Is Still a Rose” co-written and produced by Lauryn Hill—a declaration of womanhood resilient to heartbreak and judgment, wrapped in soulful grace and strength.
Ballard’s work in a Rose is a Rose is a Rose can be seen a visual call and response, coalescing into pieces such as Tomorrow was Beautiful (2025), Righteousness & Rituals (2023) and Ashe, So be it (2022), linking African spiritual traditions with contemporary Black womanhood. Each assemblage becomes both altar and archive: where the past speaks, the present listens, and the future answers. Ashe (or Àṣẹ and pronounced as “ah-shay”) is a Yoruba word embodying spiritual power, intention, and affirmation, resonates here as a Blessing, a benediction, a truth spoken and sealed with Love. A rose is a rose—and so it is. Amen. Ashe.
Lavett Ballard: a Rose is a Rose is a Rose is curated by Kimberly Diana Jacobs for the August Wilson African American Cultural Center.
This exhibition is made possible with support from RAD.
Artist Statement
As a mixed media collage artist, my work explores the intersections of feminism, beauty, empowerment, and the historical and contemporary roles of women—particularly Black women. This exhibition, a Rose is a Rose is a Rose, draws inspiration from my first encounter with August Wilson’s Fences as a teenager. Years later, the symbolism of fences—as both barrier and boundary—deeply influenced my practice. I began using reclaimed wooden fences as substrates, honoring their aged surfaces as metaphors for the human body and lived experience.
This series focuses on the often-overlooked female characters in Wilson’s plays—women whose strength and complexity deserve center stage. Through layered collages of imagery, paint, and metallics on wood, I reimagine these women as timeless forces within our cultural narrative.
New to this series is my use of circular wooden rounds, a nod to Wilson’s Century Cycle—ten plays spanning each decade of the 20th century. These rounds symbolize the cycles of time, generational memory, and the enduring presence of Black womanhood.
With this work, I aim to give voice and visual weight to these characters, elevating them beyond the background and into their rightful place at the center of the story.
Artist Bio
Lavett Ballard is a mixed media visual artist, art historian, curator, and author. She holds a dual Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art and Art History with a minor in Museum Studies from Rutgers University, and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Time Magazine commissioned Ballard’s art first in March 2020 for their special multi cover edition for the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage and in February 2023 for a cover and interior art for Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s essay about her book CASTE: Origins of our Discontent. In 2024 her art was featured in the NAACP Image Award winning Non-Fiction book ‘The New Brownies’ Book: A Love Letter to Black Families by Karida L. Brown & Charly Palmer.
Her work has been included in both literary & film productions and collected both nationally and internationally. Acquisitions include the Petrucci Family Foundation, Grant & Tamia Hill collection, the Francis M. Maguire Museum, the African American Museum of Philadelphia, the U.S. Art in the Embassies, St Joseph’s University, Syracuse Universities- Community Folk Arts Center, & Jule Collins Smith Fine Art Museum at Auburn University Collections among many others.
