Come as You Are, This Is Our Battle Too is an exhibition of recent works that centers healing and transformation. Following a battle with an unexpected health diagnosis starting in fall 2023, the artist embarked on an inward journey exploring the depths of her own spirit, reflecting on the guidance, prayers, and support of her community. Isaac’s reimagined landscapes represent places that the artist has occupied emotionally and mentally while grappling with grief, anger, and sadness, and seeking hope, love, and grace. Illuminated by various sources of light and celestial beings, her paintings allude to her ancestors, who are constantly present. The exhibition serves as an invitation for viewers to come to the work with their own battles.
ARTIST BIO
Madjeen Isaac is a first generation Haitian-American artist whose practice is rooted in home, communality and belonging. Isaac reimagines and hybridizes landscapes to center boundless Black and Caribbean existences depicting joy, leisure, and liberation. Ultimately she challenges ideas around liminal spaces and the constraints of reality. By reimagining and suggesting ideal worlds of access and autonomy, she inspires viewers to internalize and claim their right to a better reality.
Isaac received a BFA in Fine Art from the Fashion Institute of Technology and an MA in Art + Edu & Community Practice from New York University. Residencies/fellowships include Smack Mellon’s Artist Studio Program, BRIClab: Contemporary Artist Residency Program, the Laundromat Project Fellowship and Lakou NOU Artist Residency Program at Haiti Cultural Exchange. She has exhibited at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Swivel Gallery, Jenkins Johnson Projects Gallery, The Frost Art Museum, The Art and Design Gallery at FIT among others. In 2023, Isaac collaborated with KITH to create an Artist Series Capsule Collection in Honor of Black History Month. She is the recipient of the 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship for Painting and the 2022 Women of Distinction Award for Arts and Entertainment from NY Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn.
Image: Madjeen Isaac, Gonna Search the Sky For New Horizons to Unfold, 2024. Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. Courtesy of the Artist.
This exhibition is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York City Council Member Lincoln Restler, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and with generous support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Robert Lehman Foundation, Select Equity Group Foundation, many individuals and Smack Mellon’s Members.
Additional support was provided by a Smack Mellon Artist Studio residency, made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of The New York Community Trust, Jerome Foundation, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Inc., Select Equity Group Foundation, and Smack Mellon’s Members.
Smack Mellon’s programs are also made possible with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and with generous support from The Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of The New York Community Trust, Jerome Foundation, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Wolf Kahn Foundation, Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Inc, The Roy and Niuta Titus Foundation, and an Anonymous Donor.
In-kind donations and services are provided by Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/NYC Department of Sanitation/NYC Department of Education and Sage and Coombe Architects.
Space for Smack Mellon’s programs is generously provided by the Walentas family and Two Trees Management.
