HMAAC Opens, The Journey to Everything and Who Feels It, Knows It

HMAAC Opens The Journey to Everything and  Who Feels It, Knows It

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The Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC) is delighted to present from August 29- December 15, 2025 Danny Simmons’ The Journey to Everything Curated by John Guess, Jr. and Co-Curated by Danielle Finnerman and Chayse Sampy’s Who Feels It, Knows It, Curated by Danielle Finnerman.

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In The Journey to Everything Philadelphia-based Neo-African Abstract Expressionist painter, poet, novelist, philanthropist and Tony Award winning producer Danny Simmons explores themes of diaspora, ancestral memory, and Black spirituality in the paintings and works on bark cloth on view. 

The title of the exhibition and its painting, The Journey to Everything, is both preface to the show and an enjambed line of poetry, to use a poetic term for an unfinished thought that flows into the next line, but that could stand on its own. Simmons is a working poet with five collections and one on the way. He is inviting you, not to consume the art, but to participate in bringing it to life.

The title  prepares us for the plenitude to come: collages on paper and canvas, with juxtaposed dots of paint and Ankara fabric, Bogolan mud cloth from Mali, paper cutouts of visible and partially visible faces, Congolese bark cloth, neon lace, gestural lines, and splashes of color on single frames and triptychs.  From permutations of the song from a civil rights march in “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,” to migration in “Take the Long Way Home,” and maps of a rainforest in “Ituri Forest”, Simmons has produced work that reflects his inner life and receptive mien.  

Organized by James Cavello and the Westwood Gallery NYC, Curated by John Guess, Jr. and Co-curated by Danielle Finnerman, the exhibition puts Simmons’ multimedia paintings in conversation with a selection of African objects from the artist’s personal collection.

According to Guess, “This work is a dynamic step forward for Simmons; work that had an impressive exhibition at the Reginald Lewis African American Museum in Baltimore. We were fortunate to get The Journey to Everything scheduled for this year.”

Chayse Sampy’s  Who Feels It, Knows It is the perfect complement to Simmons work. Drawing from the enduring spirit of Black resistance, Sampy incorporates a collage of images and materials that highlight the collaborative nature of Blackness across time and space. Her mixed media paintings are sculptural, functioning as monuments, memorials, and memories and imbued with deep symbolism reflecting the centuries old war on the Black Imagination. By incorporating mediums often associated with “craft,” her work conveys a sense of resourcefulness, adaptability, and complexity integral to the Black experience, calling forth a tradition of fugitive creativity. 

Sampy has said of her artistic environment, “On the artistic front, my work is in dialogue with contemporary artists like Arthur Jafa, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, and Wangechi Mutu. Jafa’s Love is the Message, the Message is Death (2016), is how I see my art functioning with its ability to capture the complex range of the Black experience.”

“Chayse Sampy is one of the fastest rising visual arts talents coming out of Houston,” according to Curator Danielle Finnerman. “Her work has been  nurtured at Sanman Studios and shown in group shows in Los Angeles, New York and Baton Rouge, and featured in media including New American Paintings West and Burnaway.”  Sampy is currently a NXTHVN Cohort 07 Studio and Curatorial Fellow, the global fellowship program founded by Titus Kaphar and Jason Price.

The Journey to Everything and Who Feels It, Knows It are generously sponsored by the Houston Endowment, HEB, Jones Walker LLP, Sara and Bill Morgan and the Board of Directors of the Houston Museum of African American Culture.

ABOUT THE HOUSTON MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE

The mission of HMAAC is to collect, conserve, explore, interpret, and exhibit the material and intellectual culture of Africans and African Americans in Houston, the state of Texas, the southwest and the African Diaspora for current and future generations. In fulfilling its mission, HMAAC seeks to invite and engage visitors of every race and background and to inspire children of all ages through discovery-driven learning. HMAAC is to be a museum for all people. While our focus is the African American experience, our story informs and includes not only people of color, but people of all colors. As a result, the stories and exhibitions that HMAAC brings to Texas are about the indisputable fact that while our experience is a unique one, it has been impacted by and has impacted numerous races, genders and ethnicities. The museum continues to be a space where a multicultural conversation on race geared toward a common future takes place.