We’ve Met Before by Khadijah Morley
Exhibition text by eva birhanu

A glow of heavy light dances across vacant figures. I’m faced with an illegible, penetrating gaze, although I'm not uncomfortable. The figures are inquisitive, in solitude. Sunset washes of colour identify them as unearthly, spiritual beings - transcending typical ways of knowing. 

FKA Twigs’ ethereal and soft falsetto voice dances in my head as I observe Khadijah’s series of woodcut prints. The blend of Twigs and Khadijah’s visualities play synonymously in my study of her series. Khadijah’s figural work is powerful and striking - yet the flow of the wood grain through the bodies reminds me to slow down, appreciating the way Khadijah can evoke softness in commanding, and sometimes heavy topics. 

Khadijah and I have been in conversation for some years; our first collaborative effort was a conversation over Zoom for public programming linked to my exhibition at The New Gallery in the early months of the pandemic. We spoke to one another through shared experiences, exciting crossovers in our work, and subtly complimenting each other in our processes. At this point, we knew very little about each other and our work but felt a connection enough to broadcast our first conversation to our communities. I was enamoured by Khadijah’s striking historical and family knowledge that played into her printmaking process. I was inspired by her way of practice, with deep roots in research and reading, and defining her work in an elusive and timeless fashion. This way of working inspired me as an emerging artist, and having the opportunity to collaborate on a series of works in 2021 solidified Khadijah’s passion for integrating stories of Black resistance and layered histories into her practice.

Khadijah has a careful cadence in the production of her work; each decision made is rooted in oral histories, or obsessive investigation into Afro-Caribbean folklore, Black feminist futures, and surrealist imagery. This new series of work, We’ve Met Before, which Khadijah has been investigating for the better part of a year, illustrates astounding technical skill and labour, quietly showing viewers her mastery in the craft of printing. Because of this humble expertise, viewers can dive into the lush gradients of colour, washing over quiet figures and their ethereal environments. Each figure presents a gaze, often despite the lack of eyes, or other facial indicators. I view this act as a message, either to warn viewers or entice them. Khadijah’s indicating a message through minimal gestures and relying on colour, shape, and bodily relation; it’s her quiet superpower.

She has been inspired by the presence of a ‘spiritual force’,  Obeah. Through stories from her grandmother and connections to her Jamaican roots, Khadijah has woven stories of folklore and culturally important concepts throughout the consciousness of her prints. Obeah penetrates all beings, a force that is known, but quiet in the way the spirit works or is seen. It’s an understanding; void of specific definers and acts, but a way of being by those who follow this spirituality. Obeah has a long-sought history in the Caribbean; it was practiced and feared by many for centuries. Colonizers feared the powers of this practice and way of being, stemming from a belief that Queen Nanny, a revered historical figure, practiced Obeah; due to her ability to successfully fight a war against the British lasting years. This fear was then translated into law; ruling powers banned all acts of Obeah as a way of controlling slaves and keeping slavery profitable. This feared power stems from Black women’s resistance and rebellion, and I find it to be an inspiring notion. Khadijah has let Obeah encounter her work through the use of storytelling. There is an underlying conjuring of resistance that feels only possible because she has infiltrated her work with familial knowledge, such as stories of Obeah. We get a closer understanding of her beliefs in Black liberty and revolution, tackling deep histories of political, social, and ideological resilience in consumable visual delicacies. It’s hard not to notice the influence of Black feminism in the figures. Often quiet, but powerful acts of resistance, Black women have upheld the fight for freedom for generations. These fighting tactics have been carried down through various vessels of knowledge keeping such as spirit work, medicines, oral histories, music, and visual signifiers. Khadijah has found a way to contribute her share of history by way of woodcut prints recognizing many that have come before her, in the name of feminism. She’s not reactionary in her takes, rather, she is acknowledging internal dialogue that takes the form of Black figures. At no point does Khadijah explicitly state these figures are representative of Black bodies, but there is a silent acknowledgement of this fact through symbols and systems of knowing. They are androgynous forms of light, conjuring vulnerability and storytelling.

“images of people who look like people—not symbols of a discourse of racism…”
Kevin Quashie
The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture 

Influenced by the words of Kevin Quashies’ The Sovereignty of Quiet, her figures take on a new meaning of solitary acts of Black resistance. In her piece Passenger (2024), we are seeing these spiritually charged reminders of refusal in the subtlety of the gaze, and the rising of a stoic body. The elusive wood-grained figure is ghost-like, but not necessarily in the traditional, Westernized idea of ghosts. They feel more soulful, and there to tell a story that the opaque-Black figure no longer can. This piece feels like more of a nod to the Divine, unearthly, because of its relation to the stoic black figure; this interaction is not seen in the same way throughout the rest of the series. While the figures may mirror each other in The Between Space (2024) and Twins (2024), the figures in Passenger (2024) are representative of themselves in two forms, drawing in a reminder of the spiritual threaded within Khadijah’s work. 

Quashie states, “the black artist lives within the crosshairs of publicness and, if she or he is to produce meaningful work, has to construct a consciousness that exists beyond the expectation of resistance”. Khadijah takes on this declaration through the act of conveying Afro-Caribbean folklore and familial ways of knowing. Her take on the spiritual is a quiet confrontation or question, and not a reaction to opinions. 

Khadijah once introduced me to the book A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand, which has since become a grounding point in my research. Brand introduced me to ideas of ‘portals’ by way of connection to ancestors in different Worlds. Although it’s been years since we spoke about the influence of this book, I am still finding pieces of Brand’s timeless words in the way Khadijah depicts figures. Ghostliness as a way to understand where they have been, or conjure stories through the realities of living in the Black Diaspora. Without a direct nod to Brand, she is still finding threads of her words in her own ways.

Khadijah, from Toronto, Canada by way of Jamaican immigrants is located in a hub of influence. Toronto hosts one of the largest Jamaican communities outside of Jamaica, and I can’t help but think of Brand's words about the bridging of New and Old Worlds. Growing up in a place surrounded by families with similar traditions is an underlying influence on the authenticity of her work. Being a part of a larger Diasporic community can be comforting when you’re finding your roots all around you, and weaving them into your practice. She speaks of her grandmother's influence in her work through folklore and magic, traditions and stories carried through generations from the Caribbean to Toronto, and managing to find their way into the grain of this series. 

Interestingly, this series has now made its way to the Canadian Prairies, of which some of the work was created at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. The Prairies haven’t always been widely known as a place of settlement for Black communities, for various reasons. Despite that narrative, however, there is a rich history of small pockets of Black settlers over the last couple hundred years. With influential African-American communities moving to rural Alberta in the early 20th century, and more recent waves of Caribbean immigrants in the 50’s, and African refugees and immigrants in the 80’s and 90’s — when my own paternal family came to Calgary — the impact of this exhibition taking place in Alberta is an exciting proposition. Recently, the Esker Foundation hosted Deanna Bowen’s Black Drones in the Hive, a massive historical and perspective-driven exhibition. This exhibition was hugely influential and eye-opening for the general public to engage with, reminding Albertans of the major influence and stomach-turning historical artifacts linked to legislation and societal norms. Bowen’s work opens a door for exhibitions like Khadijah’s to take place in Alberta and reminds us of the generational knowledge required to create important exhibitions such as these, in places that historically repel these showcases of resistance.

‍We’ve Met Before, is an invitation to viewers. The prints lining the walls are striking examples of the right to opacity, enticing storytellers, and grounding symbols. Khadijah’s careful touch as a printmaker is further exemplified in how she tells me about her work; occasionally beating around the bush, leaving out the details that I’m already finding myself connecting. She told me that she’s not always interested in assuming who her audience may be, or what assumptions they may come to her work with. To me, this is a powerful way of creating work spiritually, rather than in reaction. It nurtures longevity and authenticity, something you never have to doubt in her work. We’ve Met Before is an exhibition about personal narratives, tied to Khadijah’s agency as a Black woman. It’s a story of conjuring and wayfinding, slipping in details of herself in grounding narratives for many of us. Taken by the soft gradients of colour, I relax into her work, knowing there’s a guiding force dancing me through.

~
‍
eva birhanu is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and arts administrator working in Mohkinstis, the Blackfoot name for Calgary, Alberta. In her artistic practice, eva works in mediums of fibre and sculpture, auto-ethnographically exploring exoticism and objectification. Through her multifaceted organizational work, she focuses on uplifting and supporting equity deserving communities, specifically encouraging the support of Black artists in arts spaces. She is currently the Co-Director at Stride Gallery, and has been with the organization since 2020, transitioning through different roles while continually focusing on representing marginalized communities in all facets of the organization. birhanu holds a BFA with distinction in Fibre from Alberta University of the Arts (2020). She has attended international artist residencies in Denmark and the USA, exhibiting nationally and internationally.

~
‍
Works Referenced
Brand, D. (2001). A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging. Vintage Canada.

Brooks K, Martin KL, Simmons LaK (2021). Conjure Feminism: Toward a Genealogy.
           Hypatia 36, 452–461. https://doi.org/10.1017/hyp.2021.43

Paton, Diana. “The Racist History of Jamaica’s Obeah Laws.” History Workshop. Published 4 July 2019.
           Accessed 11 January 2025. 

Quashie, K. (2012). The sovereignty of quiet: Beyond resistance in black culture. Rutgers University Press.

Wikipedia contributors. "Nanny of the Maroons." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
            Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 10 Jan. 2025. Web. 11 Jan. 2025.

‍List of Images
Khadijah Morley, Passenger, Woodcut and Linocut Print (2024)

‍