Roots Run Deep
WORK_SPACE
Manchester
Sept. 22, 2026
Titled Roots Run Deep, the latest exhibit at Manchesters WORK_SPACE features work from New England artists with a connection to indigenous heritage meant to explore “the unbreakable links between past, present, and future.” There were many examples of art celebrating Native culture. Mmy eyes were drawn to the more unusual and abstract representations.
For example, Comforts From Our Past is a beautiful, dark, obtuse piece. Constructed from wood, the first thing that jumps out are the massive eyes staring back. The rest of the shapes are a mystery to me. The central piece between the two curved strips of wood may be an oddly shaped bell. Why do the outer pieces of wood have borings in them?
It’s an exhilarating feeling to look at a piece of art that yields nothing to the viewer. It’s an inscrutable object, the most tantalizing of all – to me at least. It certainly means something to artist Gary O’Neil (Red Oak). He has shown me something deep and meaningful, even if that meaning is lost on an outsider.
Carriers of the Memory gave me a similar feeling, but this time with swirling color. Artist August, the Art Child’s visual foundation is a handprint and footprint in a breathtaking shade of purple.
Then the natural world is laid atop them: a shriek of pink and red left of center that looks like a feather, a tuft of black-olive ferns sprouting from the bottom of the frame. August represents “the memory” with stripes of color dancing along the sole of the foot, and as dots of color containing even smaller dots of color erupting around the piece.
The brightness of the work doesn’t take away from its starkness. Where O’Neil’s darkness conveys little information, August offers an overload of energy and light. The image is just as specific to August’s Taino, Maroon and Arawak heritage as O’Neil’s is to his Wangunk ancestry.
Cultural representation can sometimes devolve into a well-meaning kind of stereotyping, where common images and ideas dominate artistic spaces. Roots Run Deep makes space for images that don’t fit my stereotyped image of what indigenous culture is. It encourages me to move away from grouping disparate peoples together and want to understand the cultural differences that inform the artistic decisions of the artists. In that way, the exhibit and the artists didn’t just “show” me their culture, they invited me to learn more.
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Jamil goes to check out a new exhibit at the Hartford Public Library.
