Berry Campbell is pleased to present Lilian Thomas Burwell: The Journey, the gallery’s third exhibition of Lilian Thomas Burwell (b. 1927). On view from February 12 through March 14, 2026, The Journey examines the evolution of Burwell’s practice, highlighting her evolution from two-dimensional painting into three-dimensional sculpture. The Journey brings together paintings, wall sculptures, and installations spanning the 1960s through the 2000s. Central to the exhibition is Burwell’s monumental installation, Orison Piece (1982). This 24-piece installation is her largest work and marks a pivotal movement into an immersive environment, in which sculptural viewers to move through and within.
The Journey reflects Burwell’s own articulation of her creative path. Both an artist and an art educator, Burwell balanced teaching with her own studio practice, viewing education as inseparable from artistic inquiry. Beginning with abstract painting in the early 1960s, her work evolved into sculptural forms, as she cut, shaped, and constructed wooden elements with painted canvas stretched over them, creating works that move from the wall into physical space. Throughout her career, Burwell has understood art as an evolutionary process rooted in intuition and material exploration, a means of personal and collective survival as well as hope.
In recent years, Burwell’s work has received renewed critical and institutional attention. In December 2022, she was featured in the New York Times as the “Tom Brady of Artists,” recognizing her continued artistic activity at the age of 95. In April 2022, Burwell received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Howard University, Washington, D.C., where she was honored alongside Betye Saar and Dr. Alvia Wardlaw. Her work was also included in Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today, an intergenerational exhibition of 21 Black women abstract artists that traveled from the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida.
Lilian Thomas Burwell: The Journey opens with a reception on February 12, 2026, from 6 to 8 pm and continues through March 14, 2026. The exhibition is accompanied by a 56-page catalogue featuring an essay by Lilian Thomas Burwell, originally appearing in her 1997 monograph, The Journey, published in conjunction with Hampton University Museum, Virginia.
