Overview
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Vickie Pierre: The Maiden is The Warrior is the first solo exhibition by Brooklyn-born, South Florida-based artist Vickie Pierre. Curated by Adeze Wilford, the Blackmon Perry Curator of African American Art & Art of the African Diaspora at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the exhibition opens on April 30, 2025.
Pierre’s artistic practice is a vivid exploration of memory, transformation, and identity, rooted in her Haitian heritage and the material culture that surrounds her. The Maiden is The Warrior presents more than 40 works—spanning paper collages, paintings, and immersive installations—that collectively reflect Pierre’s innovative use of found objects and her fluid approach to abstraction and figuration.
Central to the exhibition is Pierre’s Poupées in the Bush series of collages, nodding to surrealists like Louise Bourgeois and Hans Bellmer, along with artists from Art Deco, Art Nouveau, and Pattern & Decoration movements, such as Miriam Shapiro. A key highlight in the exhibition, this body of work features hybridized figures inspired by Greek and global mythology through latticed paper collages as gestures of femininity and armor. This body of work embodies rebirth and reclamation, personified through the Black female form and diverse identities, from South and East Asian to Caribbean, European, African, Indigenous, and Middle Eastern cultures. Collage is integral to Pierre’s practice, emphasizing rhythmic layering to create figures from various source materials. Her works transcend time, blending historical and pop-cultural references as a vehicle for empowerment.
A new installation will serve as the exhibition’s centerpiece, evoking a carousel or chandelier within an imagined garden. Motorized ceiling elements shimmer with beads, casting a wavering cathedral effect. Hand-strung beading is a key aspect of Pierre’s artistic language, incorporating glass, crystal, wood, acrylic, metal, and Majok seeds (“Job’s Tears”). This meditative process of stringing beads becomes an act of recording and reflection, and by incorporating these elements into her installation, Pierre honors her Haitian heritage while also underscoring the interconnected nature of cultural practices and traditions.
Cascading from this moving ceiling ornament, strands refract light in a soft, shimmering shower, forming a gathering space for Pierre’s Poupées to commune and assemble. In addition, the installation will feature various other decorative floating objects—including suspended butterflies, chime bells, and floral bundles—symbolizing the magical, yet fleeting, cycle of life, enlightenment, and the preservation of beauty and memories.
By incorporating both deeply personal and diasporic narratives, The Maiden is The Warrior invites viewers into a meditative, transformative space where ornamentation meets the unsettling, asserting a profound exploration of memory, resilience, and cultural interconnectivity.
About the artist
Vickie Pierre is a native New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. There, the artist graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a degree in Fine Arts Painting. After living in Miami for 20+ years, she relocated to live and create in Vero Beach, Florida. Her artworks have been displayed in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including Perez Art Museum Miami, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, among others. In 2023, Pierre's work was selected by the Art in Embassies Program to be displayed in the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Her artworks can be found in private and public collections.
Artist photo: Courtesy of the artist
About the curator
Adeze Wilford is the Blackmon Perry Curator of African-American Art and Art of the African Diaspora at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. She previously was the Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami where she led the museum’s public art initiatives and organized exhibitions including Andrea Chung: Between Too Late and Too Early and Lonnie Holley: If You Really Knew. Prior to that she was an Assistant Curator at The Shed where she organized Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water. She was an inaugural joint curatorial fellow at The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Modern Art. She organized Vernacular Interior at Hales Gallery in 2019 as well as Excerpt (2017) at the Studio Museum and Black Intimacy (2017) a film series at MoMA. She has contributed scholarship to various catalogues and magazines including Young, Gifted and Black and Black Refractions. She graduated from Northwestern University with a BA in Art History and African-American Studies.
Vickie Pierre: The Maiden is The Warrior is the first solo exhibition by Brooklyn-born, South Florida-based artist Vickie Pierre. Curated by Adeze Wilford, the Blackmon Perry Curator of African American Art & Art of the African Diaspora at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the exhibition opens on April 30, 2025.
Pierre’s artistic practice is a vivid exploration of memory, transformation, and identity, rooted in her Haitian heritage and the material culture that surrounds her. The Maiden is The Warrior presents more than 40 works—spanning paper collages, paintings, and immersive installations—that collectively reflect Pierre’s innovative use of found objects and her fluid approach to abstraction and figuration.
Central to the exhibition is Pierre’s Poupées in the Bush series of collages, nodding to surrealists like Louise Bourgeois and Hans Bellmer, along with artists from Art Deco, Art Nouveau, and Pattern & Decoration movements, such as Miriam Shapiro. A key highlight in the exhibition, this body of work features hybridized figures inspired by Greek and global mythology through latticed paper collages as gestures of femininity and armor. This body of work embodies rebirth and reclamation, personified through the Black female form and diverse identities, from South and East Asian to Caribbean, European, African, Indigenous, and Middle Eastern cultures. Collage is integral to Pierre’s practice, emphasizing rhythmic layering to create figures from various source materials. Her works transcend time, blending historical and pop-cultural references as a vehicle for empowerment.
A new installation will serve as the exhibition’s centerpiece, evoking a carousel or chandelier within an imagined garden. Motorized ceiling elements shimmer with beads, casting a wavering cathedral effect. Hand-strung beading is a key aspect of Pierre’s artistic language, incorporating glass, crystal, wood, acrylic, metal, and Majok seeds (“Job’s Tears”). This meditative process of stringing beads becomes an act of recording and reflection, and by incorporating these elements into her installation, Pierre honors her Haitian heritage while also underscoring the interconnected nature of cultural practices and traditions.
Cascading from this moving ceiling ornament, strands refract light in a soft, shimmering shower, forming a gathering space for Pierre’s Poupées to commune and assemble. In addition, the installation will feature various other decorative floating objects—including suspended butterflies, chime bells, and floral bundles—symbolizing the magical, yet fleeting, cycle of life, enlightenment, and the preservation of beauty and memories.
By incorporating both deeply personal and diasporic narratives, The Maiden is The Warrior invites viewers into a meditative, transformative space where ornamentation meets the unsettling, asserting a profound exploration of memory, resilience, and cultural interconnectivity.
About the artist
Vickie Pierre is a native New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. There, the artist graduated from the School of Visual Arts with a degree in Fine Arts Painting. After living in Miami for 20+ years, she relocated to live and create in Vero Beach, Florida. Her artworks have been displayed in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including Perez Art Museum Miami, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, among others. In 2023, Pierre's work was selected by the Art in Embassies Program to be displayed in the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Her artworks can be found in private and public collections.
Artist photo: Courtesy of the artist
About the curator
Adeze Wilford is the Blackmon Perry Curator of African-American Art and Art of the African Diaspora at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. She previously was the Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami where she led the museum’s public art initiatives and organized exhibitions including Andrea Chung: Between Too Late and Too Early and Lonnie Holley: If You Really Knew. Prior to that she was an Assistant Curator at The Shed where she organized Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water. She was an inaugural joint curatorial fellow at The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of Modern Art. She organized Vernacular Interior at Hales Gallery in 2019 as well as Excerpt (2017) at the Studio Museum and Black Intimacy (2017) a film series at MoMA. She has contributed scholarship to various catalogues and magazines including Young, Gifted and Black and Black Refractions. She graduated from Northwestern University with a BA in Art History and African-American Studies.
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