Atlanta Contemporary is proud to host an artist talk with Tokie Rome-Taylor, whose interdisciplinary practice bridges photography, textiles, and cultural memory to examine familial and spiritual archives of African Americans in the South.
The conversation will center on Rome-Taylor’s work Heirloom Seeds, a multimedia installation that layers pigment ink photographs on vinyl and organza with hardwood rods and standoff posts. Acting as both visual metaphor and cultural meditation, Heirloom Seeds reflects on the resilience of Black families across generations. Just as heirloom seeds are saved, carried, and replanted to sustain new life, Rome-Taylor’s work reclaims and recontextualizes histories that are too often overlooked. The piece underscores the adaptability, endurance, and strength of traditions passed down through family, while also gesturing toward futures rooted in cultural inheritance.
Through this talk, Rome-Taylor will share how her practice excavates memory and forgotten narratives, weaving together themes of spirituality, identity, and visibility. Her approach draws from ethnographic and historical research while employing image-making, embroidery, beading, and assemblage. Children often appear as central figures in her work, standing as carriers of ancestral knowledge and reconstructed histories.
Rome-Taylor’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with pieces held in collections including the Coca-Cola Corporation, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and the Fralin Museum at the University of Virginia. A seasoned educator and practicing artist, she brings more than two decades of experience in creating art that bends the history of the present with that of the past.
This event offers audiences an opportunity to engage directly with Rome-Taylor’s vision and her ongoing exploration of cultural resilience, heritage, and the power of art to reframe history.
Photographer and Georgia native, Tokie Rome-Taylor focuses on the notion that perception of self and belonging begins in childhood. Children are the subjects she centers within her works, with a focus on representing a visual elevation that had been omitted from mainstream “western art history”. Her works have a painterly aesthetic, using both digital and analog image making techniques. She often incorporates multiple mediums, including embroidery, pigments, beading and wax. The resulting works challenge the viewer’s expectation of what a photograph should look like.
CALLING ALL VENDORS! Atlanta Contemporary is accepting vendor applications for our annual Holiday Market. Application submission closes on October 15 at 11:59 pm. Atlanta Contemporary presents local artists and craftspeople who create temporary storefronts in our museum galleries.
Open Studios invites you to get to know the artists in our Studio Artist Program. Come see their work firsthand and just maybe add some art to your collection.
Join us for a transformative morning of movement and sound at Flow State, a one-hour immersive yoga experience led by Sydney McCall, accompanied by the live sounds.
