NAJEE TOBIN: FURTHER INTO THE PLACE

June 6 – July 12, 2025

Artists’ Reception: Saturday, June 7, 3 – 5 pm

Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: June 6, July 4, 5 – 9 pm

2025 Juried Show Award Winner
Selected by Juror Demetri Broxton
MERCURY 20 presents the 2025 Juried Show Award winner, whose work was chosen for this solo exhibition from over 500 entries.
Further Into The Place is a photographic project rooted in 1960’s – 1980’s sci-fi art and incorporating Afro-Surrealist motifs. It is a nod to the artists Sun Ra, Funkadelic, Digable Planets, Deltron 3030; to the universes they created and the journeys they took their audiences on. Using items only found in the homes of black grandmothers and aunties, each character is accompanied by the avatars of their prayers in the form of the statues that line their homes. Wilhelm, who is followed and protected by the Black Madonna, learns to harness the abilities that his grandmother saw in him from the day he was born. Avalon was charged to be the ferryman of spirits to the next chapter from the end of the universe. Each being started off as a person but was taken into space just as Sun-Ra was once before. Each is given a chance to grow far beyond the influence of earth as we know it. Further Into The Place invites viewers to explore the polylithic nature of black diasporic galaxies.