George Nelson Preston: The Four Moments of the Sun

Paintings that trace the sun’s passage through the sky anchor this reflective exploration of time, ancestry and cosmology. George Nelson Preston’s latest body of work draws from the sacred Bakongo cosmogram to visualize life’s cyclical nature, connecting lived experience with spiritual lineage.

Presented in Nina Johnson’s Exhibition Library, George Nelson Preston: The Four Moments of the Sun is on view from May 22 through August 7. The exhibition marks Preston’s second solo presentation with the gallery and his first within this intimate wood-paneled space. The paintings reflect the artist’s long-standing engagement with the Afro-Atlantic world and incorporate references to the symbolic transitions between realms in Kongo cosmology—birth, life, death and rebirth—through color, gesture and layered abstraction.

Preston, born in 1938 in New York City, is not only a painter but also an art historian, writer and Akan chief. His wide-ranging career includes founding a hub for Beat artists in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, curating the African Hall at the Brooklyn Museum and teaching for over three decades at the City College of New York. His practice weaves scholarly depth with a personal visual language shaped by memory and migration.

This exhibition also includes a painting by Cassi Namoda, whose introduction helped initiate Preston’s relationship with the gallery, framing the show as an intergenerational dialogue on Black artistic expression and shared heritage. Books from Preston’s own intellectual journey line the room, offering viewers a deeper context for the themes explored across the canvases.