Joy is an emotion Ekpuk repeatedly visits in his work — his 2014 site-specific drawing for the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts was even titled Ode to Joy — and this exhibition is no different. Praise Be (2026) a digital painting featuring two dancers outfitted in ukara cloth captures this so well to the extent that the viewer can see the dynamism in the figures’ static pose. Some might see a clash between the church depicted in the painting’s background and the dancers’ cultural clothing, an indigo-dyed cotton wrapper originally worn exclusively by members of the Ekpe secret society
