The Ever Presence of Heritage At N’Namdi Contemporary

 Installation view of Stephen Arboite, “Embrace of Memory” at N’Namdi Contemporary Miami. (Photo courtesy of Aisha Ali Parker)

Stephen Arboite’s work is a perfect fit for N’Namdi Contemporary. Founder Jumaane N’Namdi is a second-generation gallery owner who grew up steeped in the history of Black art in America and Arboite’s work is about inheritance, generational trauma, the parallel dimensions inhabited by energy beings on the astral plane. In Arboite’s art, we are all connected. He gives us portals to visit other universes that are in the past, the energetic present, and the future with rapid simultaneity.

The exhibition is of emotionally complex collages. His work aligns with the gallery’s commitment to the timeless and transcendent art, over fleeting trends, while championing Black artists.

Stephen Arboite, Untitled “Memory Series”, 2024, coffee, pigment, collage, 54 x 51 inches. (Photo courtesy of Aisha Ali Parker)

Jumaane upholds this vision alongside his wife, Lauren and the gallery follows the legacy of his parents, gallery owners George and Carmen N’Namdi, who have long been pioneers in Detroit’s cultural revival. In the 1970s, George, an advocate of equality, with master’s degrees in education and psychology, changed his last name to N’Namdi, meaning “father’s name lives on” in Ibo, the language of Eastern Nigeria.

Introduced to art at the age of six, Jumaane grew up immersed in the family business. After graduating from Atlanta’s Morehouse College in 1997, he became director of the G.R. N’Namdi Gallery in Chicago, later expanding it to New York. He opened his own gallery in Miami in 2012, leveraging decades of expertise. Jumaane has a deep understanding of the importance of quality and longevity in art and the essential connections between art, artists, culture, and collectors. He is a bridge, a connector, for his clients to the significant voices of the time.

Carmen N’Namdi, the integral N’Namdi matriarch, at Progressive Art Brunch in Miami. (Photo by Erin Parish)

Arboite, Haitian American and born in New York, creates work that exists at the crossroads of cultural heritage, the spirit world, and self-discovery. Through a layered process, fragmented shapes slowly coalesce, faces emerge—enigmatic forms that invite introspection. A journey from abstraction to recognition mirrors an internal process towards enlightenment or transformation.

In the initial impression, the depth of each piece asserts itself as his collages float on well-chosen black matting. The largest work sits atop a black circle directly painted on the wall, the form of which echoes throughout the works in the exhibition. A centrifugal force gathers the collage elements while simultaneously moving outwards, chaos on the horizon echoing the expansion and contraction of universes.

Stephen Arboite, Manchét #1, 2024, coffee, pigment, collage, 29 ½ x 15 ½ inches. (Photo courtesy of Aisha Ali Parker)

We are drawn into this yin/yang world of Arboite’s with ripped versus scissored paper, painted versus dyed, abstract versus representational, all in expressed in the muted tones of the timeworn, of history. With collage there is the awareness of what has not been included, what is left on the cutting room floor. Arboite’s work is succinct, there is no flabby excess to compensate for something lacking.

Arboite’s machete is the outlier in this exhibition of interior portraits. It is ringed in blood red, a reference to the history of Haiti. The machete, a recurring motif, is a powerful symbol of the people’s resistance and liberation. In this culture, tire machèt—a martial art involving machetes—represents rebellion and survival, rooted in the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804, when enslaved Haitians, armed with machetes overthrew French colonial rule.

This is a visceral symbol of destruction and production. Haitian men provided for their families with the tool and fought for rights with it as a weapon.

Stephen Arboite, Untitled “Memory Series”, 2024, coffee, pigment, collage, 67½ x 61½ inches. (Photo courtesy of Aisha Ali Parker)

Coffee is also a significant material in Arboite’s work. It carries cultural weight tied to colonialism, labor, and trade, and in Arboite’s hands. The use of coffee connects his Haitian American blood to symbolic alchemy.

While Arboite’s art addresses struggle, it avoids messages of anger. The joy of artmaking and the beauty of transformation are palpable. The raw materiality of his work—visible brushstrokes, layered textures, and torn edges—emphasizes a connection to the artist’s hand, which is a contrast to the detached, digital nature of much contemporary art currently on view. The tactile quality echoes a lineage of Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Al Loving, and Benny Andrews, whose work also balanced abstraction, representation, and cultural storytelling who all show with the N’Namdis, both father and son.

(Watch: Stephen Arboite Studio Visit)

The work of Arboite exemplifies the undertaking of creating his own language. He situates the emotional and spiritual within the material, creating work that bridges historical trauma with contemporary existence.

Gazing over the paper collages, there is a slow reveal, an unfolding or blossoming. The paper pieces imply labor from the hand of the artist, experimenting until the piece sings. Listen closely and hear a society’s chatter and song, taste the flavor of the food, and see the line of the sky as it meets land or water.

WHAT: Stephen Arboite – “In the Embrace of Memory”

 WHERE: N’Namdi Contemporary Miami, 6505 NE 2nd Ave., Miami

 WHEN: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday

 COST: Free

 INFORMATION: 786-332-4736 or nnamdicontemporary.com

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