In her solo exhibition, “The Sterlings,” artist Bria Sterling-Wilson displays an effective narrative of her family identity. By using powerful collages and photography, she reconstructs family memories and honors her culture. Wilson’s exhibition challenges viewers to explore their generational ties, as she deconstructs her family archives.
Wilson is a collage artist and photographer. Her studies began at Morgan State University and she continued her studies at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. Wilson finished her studies at Towson University, where she graduated with a 4.0 GPA and earned her photography and digital arts degree.
Wilson had a meet-the-artist event on Loyola University Maryland’s campus, where she explained her artwork and spoke about what her work meant to her. Wilson said that a huge influence in her artwork is her Black female identity. As she grew as an artist, she realized the important role photography can play in Black history.
“I am a Black woman, I am a Black artist. Years ago, you would have never thought that I could be in this position showing work at a university. That is a blessing in itself,” Wilson said.
Wilson’s artwork displayed at Loyola went deep into her family archives, and Wilson also displayed her own original archives, adding to the story. Her exhibition expresses the connections between her old family photographs and the new photos she displayed, showing the generations of her family and the relationships between her artwork and her family’s history.
Being an activist through her art played an important role in the artist Wilson is today.
“When I first started out, I knew I wanted to have this idea of this rebel talking about stereotypes and police brutality, and just being an activist through my art so that’s what really initially pushed me,” Wilson said.
Wilson specializes in and focuses on mixing collages and mediums; the power of her artwork comes from the different pieces she puts together and how they work together to tell a story. Wilson has been drawn to the beauty of photography and the powerful images it can show.
“I’ve always been attracted to it because of the idea of capturing a moment and it being saved and then to be able to look at a photograph and your mind can go back to that time and recollect on those moments,” Wilson said.
Wilson also said that photography is such a powerful tool for moving forward while also being able to look back and learn from the past. In order to move forward, a beautiful thing is to look back on the past and have information to look back on.
“Photographs are very important. We need photographs just in general. Just as a historical thing, as a visual element. Photographs are needed,” Wilson said.
