The Women In Between

Walking into Boxx The Artist's latest exhibition feels different. The Women in Between & Other Works isn't your typical gallery experience; it's more like meeting women you should have known about years ago but somehow didn't. Boxx has created what she calls a "portrait montage project" that zeroes in on local grassroots leaders, specifically the dark-skinned Black women whose work often goes unrecognized.

These aren't just portraits; they're introductions to community shapers and storytellers who've been influencing change from positions that society tends to overlook. "I realized I wasn't taking photos or creating paintings, but making space: psychological spaces, spaces to be heard, spaces to be seen, moments of pause," Boxx explains. "That shift changed everything.”

The work tackles something that's bothered Boxx for years: how photography and traditional printmaking have historically failed to properly capture dark skin tones. It's a technical problem with deep cultural implications, something she traces back to listening on the steps of her mother's salon as a child, learning "the gaps between what was said and unsaid, the language that had its own code and rhythm, the silences that carried whole histories."

Her portraits are striking; some show faces with deliberately obscured eyes, subtle gestures, gazes that look past the viewer or pierce directly through. "Those small choices carry weight," she says. "They embody the tension of being seen and unseen, present and in-between, which is the heartbeat of this series." Each piece is paired with interviews -- the actual voices of these women woven into the exhibition through film, creating what Boxx calls "overlapping tones that never resolve completely, much like the stories behind these works."

What makes this collection particularly powerful is its focus on Indiana; women from Indianapolis and surrounding areas who share "cultural landscapes and experiences" that connect them beyond just geography. Boxx's recent three-portrait series of local creative Mel-Lo demonstrates how she weaves historical recognition with celebrating people making an impact right now. The exhibition does exactly what Boxx hopes her art will do: start conversations that matter while creating space for joy and recognition.

"I want people to walk out of this exhibit carrying a kind of unsettled tenderness," she says – aware of how much lives in the spaces between people, whether they seem different or similar on the surface. That philosophy extends to how Boxx sees all of us: "We are all rough drafts, we're all still becoming." The title itself is almost a correction - these women were never really "in between" anything. They've been central to their communities all along. Boxx's portraits just make sure we finally see them that way.