NEWSLETTER
Opening Upstate Art Weekend in Kingston NY
On view 7/17 - 9/2/25, opening Saturday July 19: Artist Talk 5PM, Reception 6-8PM
Kingston, N.Y. – Brooklyn-based artist and photographer Brandon Thomas Brown (b 1988, US) presents his latest body of work in a deeply personal solo exhibition titled Ancestry, on view from July 17 through September 2, 2025 at Pinkwater Gallery (now located at Kingston Social in uptown Kingston, NY). His work weaves together original photography, collage, and symbolic elements to capture the nuances of identity.
Known for his emotionally rich portraiture and ritual-based art practice, Brown turns the lens inward in this new series, a photographic meditation on identity, spirit, and ancestry. Starring model-muses Catherine Aluoch Ojode, Shacar, and Dakaibo, the exhibition is an intimate narrative drawn from the artist’s own life. At its center is the mother: a powerful, guiding force who holds space for her son’s evolution. Tasked with caring for others while protecting her own, she becomes a bridge - between past and present, between body and spirit.
This exhibition invites viewers into a layered world where memory, mysticism, and maternal love shape the path to self-discovery. Set against both constructed and natural landscapes, the photographs offer visual poems about becoming. Through the mother’s presence, the son learns to see himself not just through skin but through soul. To listen inward. To remember. To bloom.
One of the highlights of this year’s Upstate Art Weekend, the opening for Ancestry begins at 5pm on Saturday July 19 with a conversation between the artist and Tina Campt, the Roger Berlind ’52 Professor of Humanities at Princeton University, followed by a reception from 6 to 8pm.
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Press inquiries:
Anne Sanger, Curator Pinkwater Gallery