Art Review: Through the Veil

Through the Veil by Lillian Blades. Solo Exhibition. June 1–October 26, 2025

One of my favorite places to go is the Sarasota Art Museum. They often have large installations of mixed media and sculptures, and I love any kind of exhibit I can walk around and interact with. There's something special about being able to walk around a 3D installation and see every side of it, see how the light reacts to it, how the brush of air from your movement changes the art, makes you a part of the exhibition.

I planned a trip to the Sarasota Art Museum specifically to see this exhibition.

As the Sarasota Art Museum states on their website, "In her first solo museum exhibition, Lillian Blades presents an array of recent and new works, exploring themes of memory, connection, self-discovery, and cultural identity."

I felt a connection to her work immediately.

Her work is about heritage and reflections. Using what you have and finding yourself reflected in your work, in the work of your ancestors.

Spray paint and Mardi Gras beads, antique jewelry, floral motifs, all on a splattered set of canvases.

Pieces of mirrors and acrylic reflect light and your own reflection haunts the art as you pass through the exhibits.

Fabrics, acrylic, and textiles are combined with mirrors and reflective surfaces in every color of the rainbow.

The pieces dance, almost like windchimes, or fabrics of skirts and hats and dresses in the wind as you move through them.

As I walk through, the art feels like the insides of Lillian were laid out so everyone could see all aspects of her. The pieces say, "Here I am, red and gold and shining and brassy and gemstonelike." Then the pieces ask, “And who are you?”

Places where there should be pictures, but instead are empty memories.

Forgotten people and pasts.

Necklaces and chains, creeping, reaching, breaking.

I like to think the shadows on the wall all are part of the exhibition too, like waves of growth and loss as time passes, same as the flowers - beautiful but temporary as this exhibition.

I face a massive triptych of gold beads, red, orange, and green. Antique frames stand up straight before falling gently, branching outwards, curving like a wave. Like the waters of the Bahamas, warm and vibrant and glittering.

Gold is imposed on natural and antique forms. Like all that was natural and simple in a childhood home was gilded in memory. Maybe it's wasn't that fantastic, but looking back it feels like it was.

The colors and textiles pull from her Bahamian roots, and it brings me a sort of bittersweet remembrance too. I'm not Bahamian, but I spent a few years living there as a young child, and memories like that never really leave you.

I remember the beaded bracelets and necklaces they wore, the ticking as the beads bumped together when you rolled your hands over them. The fabric sold in shops and hanging over open doorways in splashes of gemstone-magenta and turquoise. The music and the water and the pieces of plastic on the beach and ceramics and light. It's all there, buried in me somewhere like a piece of sea glass worn down over time or buried in sand, but never really gone and never, ever forgotten.

The mirrors reflect yourself in a tapestry of the colorful people that make up your past, your family, your ancestry, your home, and the possibilities of the future. A reminder that we are a part of what came before and are tied to what will come after. I ponder my own past, my family. I have two small children now, and they fit in my family, my tapestry. They take what I give them, the blessings and the curses, and those will be passed on one day too.

The blank spaces seem to be open to growth, to new things, to gathering. I imagine the large exhibit to be moving, spiraling out from the center. I wonder what I am gathering to myself, what I can encourage my children to gather. Will they be artists or writers? Will they help people? I can only hope they will grow in whatever way feels right to them.

Maybe that’s how we grow is by expanding and doubling back to our past, our roots, our ancestors, and spinning out from there, gathering the new as we explore the world.

The largest piece in the exhibition is The Sanctuary. Here, I imagine walking underneath a shelter of what it feels like to be home, to be connected to your own vibrant past, and to know oneself.

This exhibition was an exploration of the self, of Lillian Blades, and I loved every minute of it. To me, it felt like pure bravery to spill oneself onto canvases and to break into pieces all the things inside of yourself, clipping and bolting and hanging them up on wire for all to see. It was a beautiful sort of gore and an exploration of past, present, and future that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Read more about the exhibition here on the Sarasota Art Museum's website and learn more about Lillian Blades on her website. Thanks for reading this art review!