BATON ROUGE, La. – The Capitol Park Museum today opened two new exhibits – Letitia Huckaby: This Same Dusty Road and Katrina Andry: The Promise of the Rainbow Never Came. Both exhibits depict how artistic interpretations of history and culture can portray the world in new ways.

This Same Dusty Road features quilted photographic works based on Huckaby's faith, family, and cultural heritage in Louisiana. Much of the work in this exhibition grows out of memories of visiting family who lived along Highway 19, north of Baton Rouge. Through heirloom fabrics, traditional hand-quilting techniques, and photography, Huckaby mines the legacy of her family—particularly the matriarchs—connecting and confronting past and present inequities. She composes her family portraits to evoke old masterworks and altar pieces. Another portrait series features nuns at the Sisters of the Holy Family Mother House, founded in 1842 by free women of color.

Letitia Huckaby holds an MFA in photography from the University of North Texas. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Library of Congress; the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont; the Samella Lewis Contemporary Art Collection at Scripps College in Claremont, California; and the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia. She has exhibited at Dallas Contemporary, the Galveston Arts Center, and the McKenna Museum of African American Art in New Orleans and been in residence with the Gee's Bend Quilters and Brandywine.

Katrina Andry: The Promise of the Rainbow Never Came includes large-scale color reduction prints and a mixed-media, site-specific installation for exhibition. This new body of work offers an alternate mythology for African men, women, and children thrown overboard during the Middle Passage, but also suggests the lingering violence against people of color. Andry's series considers the promise of the rainbow – the promise not to be destroyed again by water – unfulfilled for people of color, who continue to endure violence and erasure three hundred years after the initial journey toward enslavement.

"We are proud to show the work of these two contemporary Louisiana artists," says Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser. "Their works show how artistic interpretations of history and culture can help us see the world in new ways."

Katrina Andry holds an MFA in printmaking from Louisiana State University. She lives and maintains a studio in New Orleans. Most recently, Andry was one of seven artists included in New Orleans Museum of Art's Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories, an exhibition reconsidering New Orleans upon the city's tricentennial. Andry was listed in the January-February 2012 issue of Art in Print as one of the top-50 printmakers. Katrina is an active member of the Staple Goods Collective in the St. Roch neighborhood of New Orleans. She has also been awarded residencies from the Joan Mitchell Center of New Orleans, Anchor Graphics in Chicago, and Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California.

Curated by Courtney Taylor, the Louisiana State University Museum of Art organized the exhibitions. Donations from Hayride Scandal, Affordable Signs, Third Eye Consulting Group, First Financial of Baton Rouge LLC, Louisiana Museum Foundation, Capitol Park Friends, Louisiana Travel, and the Winifred & Kevin Reilly, Jr. Foundation supported both exhibitions. The exhibits can be viewed at Capitol Park Museum in Baton Rouge through September 17, 2022.

The Capitol Park Museum is a Louisiana State Museum, telling a story of passion, adventure, and discovery that could have happened in #OnlyLouisiana. Come experience a way of life like no other. Capitol Park Museum is open Tuesday – Saturday, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. For more information, please call 225-342-5428 or visit the Capitol Park Museum webpage.