“tell a lie about me. i’ll tell the truth about you. is an exhibition about perspective and its interplay within the context of intersectional identity. Each piece in the show is rooted in a recalibration of historical narratives and popular culture. Each work is a scene depicting the juxtaposition of Americana paintings as well as significant architectural sites, such as Monticello, with cultural narratives from film and television shows. The artist refers to these compositions as “Allegorical Spaces,” he says “I’ve recontextualized these visual fragments extracted from cinematic and photographic sources within allegories that complicate our relationship with spatial narratives and metaphors and how (and by whom) they’ve been told.” 

Within this framework, the works play both conceptually and physically with the idea of intersectional perspectives and hierarchies. Each piece is made up of several layers stacked upon themselves as a physical representation of the idea of power structures and vertical systems within social constructionism. The works should be understood as “vertical triptychs”- an idea that the spread of stories are physically compiled on top of themselves, rather than  our traditional understanding of horizontal triptychs. This prompts the understanding that narratives become more culturally potent as they are continuously layered upon themselves.”

– Jasmine Wahi, exhibition introduction, 2021