Winter/Spring 2025 Exhibitions
Waters of the Abyss: An Intersection of Spirit and Freedom
Fabiola Jean-Louis
February 27 - May 25, 2025
Multi-disciplinary Fabiola Jean-Louis’s captivating exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum invites visitors on a journey through the ancient and eternal, earthly and divine, personal and political. On view from February 27 – May 25, 2025, Waters of the Abyss: An Intersection of Spirit and Freedom by Fabiola Jean-Louis features a large amount of original commissions from the Haitian artist, crafted from the stunningly intricate marriage of paper pulp, mineral stones, shells, metals, glass, and more. Invoking the sanctity of Vodou and its role in Haitian liberation, these works will transform the Museum’s three rotating exhibition spaces, Hostetter Gallery; Fenway Gallery; and the Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade, into a map of personal histories, a site of communion, and a spiritual portal.
Image Credit
Fabiola Jean-Louis (Haitian 1978 - ), All That Was and Nevermore, 2024, Papier-mâché, paint on paper, crystals, resin enamel, sequins, beads, and mixed media decorations, 157.5 x 113 x 8.9 cm (62 x 44 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.) ©2024 Fabiola Jean-Louis. Photo: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
About the Artist
Courtesy of the artist. © Fabiola Jean-Louis
Fabiola Jean-Louis was born in Port Au Prince, Haiti on September 10th, 1978 and moved as a child to Brooklyn, NY, where she’s currently based. She studied at the School of Fashion Industries in New York and the Art Institute of Pittsburgh; she now works in a variety of media—including sculpture, photography, ceramic, and film. Her Afro Surrealist work frequently explores spirituality, history, and the expansive complexities of Blackness.
Jean-Louis has been awarded residencies at the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) inNew York City, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Her work has been exhibited at DuSable Museum of African American History, the Gardner Museum, and Andrew Freedman Home. In 2021, The Metropolitan Museum of Art commissioned a paper sculpture for a two year exhibition, Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room. It debuted on November 5th, 2021—making her the first Haitian, female artist to show in the prestigious institution, which also exhibited her remarkable paper dress sculpture Justice of Ezili through late 2024. Jean-Louis exhibited at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum most recently in fall 2023 with Fabiola Jean-Louis: Rewriting History.
Waters of the Abyss: An Intersection of Spirit and Freedom is supported in part by the Barr Foundation, Wagner Foundation and the Barbara Lee Program Fund.
The Artist-in-Residence program is directed by Pieranna Cavalchini, Tom and Lisa Blumenthal Curator of Contemporary Art. Funding is also provided for site-specific installations of new work on the Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade on Evans Way.
The Museum receives operating support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which is supported by the state of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
