The Struggle Continues…: Artist Talk

The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts is pleased to host the exhibition “The Struggle Continues…” This solo show features the works of Tim Davis, a multidisciplinary artist born in Chicago, IL and based in Washington, DC. Come see the artist talk on April 18th at 2PM.

Artist Tim A. Davis presents The Struggle Continues…, a powerful exhibition featuring works from his ongoing Power Room Series and his immersive Black Box Installation. Through painting and sculptural assemblage, Davis confronts urgent social realities while inviting viewers into a space of reflection, reckoning, and dialogue. At the heart of the exhibition is the Black Box Installation, a narrative environment grounded in the idea of being “in between.” Davis reflects on the current state of the United States as a nation suspended between extremes—political, social, and moral—resulting in uncertainty and fractured growth.

Using repurposed drawers and cabinets, he constructs symbolic containers that hold the layered truths of housing inequality, discrimination, racism, mass incarceration, migration, and other defining issues that shape America. Through carefully chosen symbols, Davis encourages viewers to engage in meaningful dialogue, seeking collective healing and forward movement.

The Power Room Series, begun in 2020, reflects Davis’s internal responses to social upheaval and lived experience. In these rooms, viewers encounter layered narratives rooted in the human experience and, more specifically, the Black experience as it relates to truth, memory, and identity.The exhibition’s title, The Struggle Continues…., echoes a phrase that has resonated throughout Davis’s life and within liberation movements worldwide. Repeated across generations, these words function as prayer, protest, and promise. The exhibition invites viewers not only to witness but to participate in the ongoing dialogue required to heal communities and address the challenges facing the nation.

The Struggle Continues…. underscores Davis’s commitment to using art as a catalyst for awareness, reflection, and transformation. Tim Davis was born in Chicago, Illinois and is recognized as an artist, a curator, and an educator. He is a mixed-media painter working primarily with narratives on social justice, activism, identity, and the Black experience. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad, including the American University Museum—Katzen Arts Center, the New Orleans African American Museum, the ARWI International Art Fair in San Juan, Puerto Rico,
and the Spectrum Miami Fair at Art Basel in Miami. His work has been on loan at the United States Embassy in Lilongwe, Malawi, and Abuja Nigeria (2020-2024). Davis’ work is included in many private and corporate collections such as: the Freddie Mac Corporation, the Commission on the Arts and Humanities—Washington DC, the Hampton University Museum, the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, Stellar Communications, Martha’s Table Head Quarters, the Community of Hope Marie Reed Health Center in Washington DC, the University of Maryland Global Campus, and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Davis received his Master of Arts degree from the University of Illinois where he studied art education and fine art. A National Endowment for the Arts fellow, Davis has worked extensively with public school education, DC, Arts Works and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He is also the founder of International Visions Gallery and Consultancy, where he encourages cross-cultural engagement with diverse collections of artists from the Washington area and underrepresented parts of the world. As an artist, educator, and curator, Davis believes art can be used to make statements, engage, inspire, and to take action for the growth, history and identity of people
everywhere.

For press inquiries, images, and additional information, please contact: Sara Khambalia, Gallery Director, Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery, sara@smithcenter.com