The Frist Art Museum is shining a long-overdue spotlight on the late Nashville artist Barbara Bullock in ‘Sistah Griot: The Iconoclastic Art of Barbara Bullock,’ a powerful exhibition that re-introduces audiences to her bold, socially conscious body of work.

Organized by the Frist with guest curator Carlton F. Wilkinson, the exhibition is part of the Tennessee Triennial and is on view in the museum’s Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery through April 26, 2026. Featuring approximately 40 works from private collections across the country, the show offers one of the most comprehensive presentations of Bullock’s art since her passing in 1996.

The exhibition traces the evolution of Bullock’s style from her early, meticulously rendered graphite drawings to the vividly colored, spatially complex paintings she created after surviving a debilitating stroke at age 35. Her stroke, which caused double vision, profoundly influenced her visual language. Rather than retreat, Bullock leaned into the altered perception, producing layered compositions that challenge traditional perspective and echo the mind-bending constructions of M.C. Escher.

Visitors to ‘Sistah Griot’ encounter intimate contour drawings of wrestlers, pedestrians, dancers, and performers alongside larger, saturated paintings that bend space and heighten emotion. The juxtaposition reveals both technical precision and expressive freedom, underscoring how Bullock transformed personal adversity into artistic innovation.

The exhibition also foregrounds Bullock’s fearless engagement with social critique. Paintings such as ‘Gentrification’ and ‘The Hate that Hate Produced’ confront racism, classism, and systemic inequality. In other works, she turned her lens inward, frequently depicting herself as the protagonist in psychologically charged scenes. In ‘Falling or The Yellow Room,’ she portrays herself plunging from a balcony in her childhood home. —a striking metaphor for her rejection of societal expectations and the privileges of her early life.

Curator Carlton F. Wilkinson describes Bullock as a ‘griot,’ a West African term for an oral historian and storyteller—a fitting title for an artist whose canvases function as layered visual narratives. Through symbolism, mythology, and autobiographical imagery, Bullock examined both personal and collective struggle.

Presented in dialogue with the adjacent exhibition ‘In Her Place: Nashville Artists in the Twenty-First Century,’ ‘Sistah Griot’ creates a cross-generational conversation. Several artists influenced by Bullock are featured nearby, reinforcing the lasting imprint she left on Nashville’s cultural landscape.

Though Bullock passed away from cancer in 1996, this exhibition affirms that her voice remains urgent and relevant. Her work (candid, layered, and spiritually searching) continues to resonate in a time when conversations about race, gender, and inequality remain at the forefront of public life.

‘Sistah Griot: The Iconoclastic Art of Barbara Bullock’ invites viewers not only to rediscover an under recognized artist, but also to reflect on the power of art as both personal healing and public witness.

For more on Barbara Bullock’s life and artistic legacy, see the accompanying artist spotlight, click HERE.