| EXHIBITION TITLE | “May Your Life Be Easy” by Sam Modder |
| LOCATION | Gallery114@HCC Ybor City Campus |
| DATES | January 15-March 12, 2026 |
| OPENING RECEPTION | Thursday, January 15, 5-8 p.m.; Artist Talk at 6 p.m. |
| EXHIBITION DESCRIPTION |
In May Your Life Be Easy, Samantha Modder combines allegory and fairytale to explore aspiration, power, and interlocking systems of oppression through larger-than-life, digitally altered ballpoint-pen drawings of Black women. Drawing its title from a blessing once offered to her mother by a Nigerian village elder, the exhibition reflects on the complications of being a person from the imagined Global South pursuing the promises of an equally imagined Global North. Inspired by masquerade and Orisha dancers from the Yoruba tradition, Modder creates lively, kinetic scenes that use an enchanting, storybook aesthetic to dissect privilege and the hard truths of a capitalist reality. Modder is a Nigerian-Sri Lankan artist born in Lagos and raised in Sri Lanka who currently lives and works in Tampa. She graduated from Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, in 2017 with a BA in Studio Art and Engineering, and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, in 2022. |