Underground Horizons is a solo exhibition by Jessica Valoris that was conceived as a companion to the Sparkplug Artists’ Collective exhibition Roots & Routes in the Main Gallery. Because Valoris digs into the reports of Black freedom-seeking in antebellum America, she intentionally explores the idea of roots as an unbreakable ancestral connection and routes as directive pathways to healing. She investigates how that legacy continues to affect the lives of everyone living in America (citizen or not), with special attention to the impact on Black people’s lives.

Through her love of history, she mines archival records to amplify accounts of socially sanctioned injustices, often revealing little-known events from this region in the 19th century. While pain exists in the chronicles she uncovers, Valoris is more focused on celebrating life beyond captivity and what these examples can teach us about resistance and liberation; she decenters trauma to shine a light on triumph. Zeroing in on the various moments of rebellion and escape embedded in the narratives, she reminds us that there was constant protest—that this was not an existence that was simply accepted. Moreover, these were people with full lives before this experience. This means the solidarity, care, and dreams from those lives still existed even under the most dire circumstances. This leads Valoris to ask, if liberation is possible in these conditions, how can we use their example as a blueprint for our freedom—if the enslaved can fight for peace, love, and joy under life or death constraints, then how can we harness that fuel of self-determination, creativity, and courage to transform our present moments.

As a way to answer her questions, Valoris crafted an art practice that excavates the energy hidden within these stories. Her meticulous research not only transports us to a meadow of memory filled with the overlooked lives from the archives, but it also points us toward a place that spans both past, present, and future. By looking within her own imagination, her tiny works on paper seek to dream a new way of being. She is not denying the atrocities of enslavement—she is simply not centering it. Instead, she pulls our attention to the edges of a wider conversation. For example, referencing a tree when discussing the antebellum American South should not only conjure up images of lynching. It certainly happened and we should honor the dead and learn from those past mistakes (see Bryan Stevenson’s remembrance project). Instead, Valoris reminds us that in that same antebellum south, trees also served as protection, communication, navigation, spirituality, medicine, and even rest. 

Because her artistic compass points toward the regenerative properties of the land always beneath us (what is underground), as well as toward the promise in the distance, both meanings of horizon are significant here. The horizon is skyline, but given her desire to see the land as an “ancestral and current ally,” I recall that horizon is also the soil science term for color or texture changes in a four-foot slice of earth. She showcases three bodies of work here: Horizons, Notes on Black fugitive mindmapping, and What is left….

Horizons are a group of abstract micropaintings made from acrylic paint, found objects, thread, and discarded cardboard. Each work is a microcosm of detail, containing symbolism and metaphor related to fugitive practice.

Notes on Black fugitive mindmapping is a deck of 52 cards, each with a different doodle. Having made over 60 zines with hundreds of sketches, Valoris uses doodling for research and reflection, listening, and decoding. Because she sees the relationship between Black people and the multiple codes we “bend, break, and navigate in order to survive,” each card reflects a moment in her meditations. However, the cards also invite the viewer to create an interpretation that resonates with them. 

In this particular exhibition, the entire deck is cleverly arranged in the shape of the Adinkra symbol for Sankofa—a bird turning its head backward—a larger hidden code encircling her miniature codes. And since the general meaning of Sankofa is about the importance of having reverence for and retrieving value from the past in order to have a positive future, Valoris doubles down on her spiritual purpose. 

This purpose also undergirds What is left… Valoris creates these mixed-media collages after sitting with the names of formerly enslaved ancestors. She then takes the unused paint from that devotional practice and creates these small works to deepen her honoring ritual. 

I am fascinated with how each piece is distinct yet connected (even between the collections) and how such small, almost delicate pieces come from such huge concepts. It initially feels counter-intuitive that art informed by the mammoth weight of enslavement would be so minute. But that is the beauty of what Valoris brings—she finds the blossoms sprouting out of ashes. So, while all of the pieces in Underground Horizons are technically born out of enslavement, Valoris leaves an offering of lightness and joy. There is a playfulness in both the presentation and materials here, with hidden gems literally around every corner. More importantly, she challenges a myopic view of history. She knows that cotton grew in lush fields long before it was associated with stolen labor. And she knows that the hidden gems from the past can stitch regeneration, resistance, and transformation into the pockets of a more powerful future.