Norwest Gallery is heavy on the melanin in sixth anniversary show, but the gallery almost didn’t make it

Walking into Norwest Gallery for the Heavy Melanin exhibit, a painting of blue and white blotches on black draws my eyes to the left.

Getting closer, I notice there are braids snaking through the piece like a maze underneath clumps of white paint and yellow speckles. There’s something mesmerizing about it, as the braids loop and curl, like the clouds passing time as your momma braids your hair on the porch in the summer and kids splash in fire hydrant water.

Heavy Melanin is Norwest Gallery of Art’s sixth-year anniversary exhibit. It went up in February and is on view until April 28. As we’d expect from the Black-owned gallery helmed by Asia Hamilton in Detroit’s Grandmont Rosedale neighborhood, Heavy Melanin revels in the diversity of the African and African American aesthetic through a range of mediums.

“Every February is our anniversary month and it’s always a celebration of Black artists,” Hamilton tells me. “It’s also Black History Month, so we always do an exhibit that celebrates Black artists as a whole and Black people as a whole. That’s why there are so many different genres and expressions of the culture.”

As you venture further into the gallery, the art oscillates between the deep abstract and figurative depictions of Blackness including sculpture, photography, painting, collage, and even a woven tapestry. It includes work by a slew of Detroit-based artists, as well as some national and international artists as well.

“Aisha With the Hair,” a photo by Ghanaian photographer Nana Kwadwo Agyei Addo, sits in front of a hazy sunset backdrop, the brown of her skin so rich she seems to glow against the golden time of a day. Her braids loop behind her to mirror the shape of her face, eyeshadow as blue as the hues of sky behind her.

Elsewhere, Jaiel Nelson paints a young woman with butterflies fluttering around her locs and another in a vulnerable moment with flowers and the winged insect attached to her bare body. Detroit abstract painter India Solomon exhibits two works with darker hues that feel different than her usual, vibrant work.

The gallery feels exuberant with a joy that makes you want to dance or just sit back and catch a vibe to the soundtrack curated by Detroit Sassi Blaque bumping in the background. But the gallery almost didn’t make it to this moment as Hamilton says she considered closing it several times as she struggled with funding and sales to keep it going.

“Last year, we were really struggling… I was ready to close this place,” she says. “I mean, I wasn’t ready to close but I was threatening to. It’s hard. I don’t just have extra money to be paying rent.”

The gallery charged a $20 admission fee for the opening reception of Heavy Melanin and Hamilton says she sold 100 tickets. She says generating income through ticket sales and programming is important for the gallery to survive and encourages visitors to purchase the art, not just look at it.

“Sales are very important. Art galleries are here to sell art. It’s not a museum, there’s a difference,” she says. “The opening was only $20. You spend that just kicking around.”

Norwest Gallery also has a “Hype Market Gift Shop” that sells prints and things like handmade jewelry that are more affordable for everyday gallery goers who probably can’t drop $4,000 on an abstract painting. The gallery was also named as an awardee in the Gilbert Family Foundation’s Seed and Bloom program, which awarded 10 Detroit artist organizations $150,000 each, over three years.

Heavy Melanin is on display through April 28 at Norwest Gallery of Art; 19556 Grand River Ave., Detroit. Gallery hours are from noon-6 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Wednesday and Thursday by appointment, and noon-4 p.m. Sunday.