A first of its kind exhibition, on display now through May 12 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, explores Black identity in the United States through collage. Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage features more than 80 collage and collage-informed works from a generation-spanning group of 52 living artists, including Houstonians Lovie Olivia, Rick Lowe, Tay Butler, and Jamal Cyrus. The exhibit seeks to unpack the complexity of Black identity through the exploration of seven distinct themes, which range from concepts of beauty and gender fluidity to cultural hybridity and historical memory.

Collage is an art form that’s ripe for such an exploration. The process of turning fragments into a cohesive whole is innate in the practice of collage, and parallels how identity is often the creation of a sense of wholeness from many seemingly disparate parts.

The exhibit begins with the themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. This section acts as an introduction to the many techniques and materials used in contemporary collage, from cutting and pasting using found paper material like books, newspapers, and photographs, to artist-created paper and intricate layering techniques. An important piece in this section is Uncle Scott by New York City–based artist Yashua Klos, composed of archival paper, Japanese rice paper, and a variety of paints and colored pencil. Klos started by carving elements into woodblocks that he then used to make prints, which were then layered together to create the collage. The end result of his technique is the creation of a fractured effect, which reflects Klos’s belief that identity is multifaceted and always shifting.

Another notable work is this section is Countenance #5 by Los Angeles–based artist YoYo Lander. Composed of watercolor paper that has been stained and washed, it deploys an intricate layering technique in which tiny colored pieces of paper are painstakingly layered together to create a complete image. According to museum labeling from the artist, the multiple shades used in each of her collages are meant to draw attention to “the multidimensionality that exists within her subjects.”

The next two sections of the exhibit are titled “Excavating History and Memory” and “Cultural Hybridity.” They explore shared histories and memories, from the Civil Rights Movement to the Middle Passage, as well as the experiences of people either born outside the United States or first-generation Americans. A highlight of these sections is Airborne Double (drum major) by New York City–based artist Derek Fordjour, depicting two drum majors dressed to the nines in their performance uniforms, and composed of a bevy of materials, from acrylic and charcoal to oil pastel and foil. Fordjour, who is an alumnus of a historically Black college, uses the work to address the creativity of Black people and how they often transform predominately white institutions and art forms into something more expressive. According to exhibition materials, it also more broadly evokes “the daily performance in which many Black people feel forced to participate.”

Beauty and power and gender fluidity in queer spaces are the focuses of the next two sections. Here, the collages deconstruct beauty standards, long centered around whiteness, and show how beauty is often centered around gender constructs. Holy Wars, by Detroit-based artist Jamea Richmond-Edwards, is particularly impactful. The large-scale, mixed-media painting, one of the largest pieces in the exhibition, is a riot of vibrant colors and features a group of women astride unicorns with bows drawn. A volcano in the background erupts magma in shades of pink, purple, and blue. The strength and air of seriousness reflected in the faces of the riders is juxtaposed sharply with the candy-colored paint deployed throughout the piece.

Equally compelling, in the section on gender fluidity in queer spaces, is Tasha by Pittsburgh-based artist Devan Shimoyama. Composed of a mélange of materials, including colored pencil, oil, sequins, glitter, beads, and silk feathers, it’s one of the most three-dimensional pieces in the exhibit. It depicts a young man in a barber’s chair, whose eyes have been replaced by pink flowers, below which drip three rhinestone tears. Above him, paper photos of men are displayed with traditionally masculine hairstyles. It’s a theme that should be familiar to anyone who has struggled with celebrating their queer identity in a society in which they are not always welcome.

Multiplicity’s final two sections include collage work that diverges from the rest of the exhibit, with a focus on abstraction and digital pieces. A key artwork in the abstraction section is by Memphis-based artist Brittney Boyd Bullock. Titled No It Ain’t, Yes It Is, the collage displays photographs of several people whose faces are turned so as to look deep into the canvas, which is painted in a cheery shade of yellow. A swirl of multicolored fabric, paper, tulle, thread, felt, and tissue paper affixed to the canvas are, according to the artist, meant to represent the chaotic unpredictability, but also beauty, of life.

One of the most prescient pieces in the digital section, which ends the exhibition, is by Connecticut-based artist Gary Burnley. Titled Self Portrait, it consists of a photograph of Emmett Till, who was brutally murdered in Mississippi by two white men in 1955. In the collage, Burnley replaced Till’s eyes and mouth with his own. Burnley, who was born in 1950, grew up in a time when Till’s murder was ever-present in the minds of many Black Americans. “Till’s story became a part of [Burnley’s] own, a cautionary tale of the possible outcomes of racism in the United States,” according to exhibit materials.

Burnley’s piece is a particularly poignant way to end an exhibition that explores the complexity of Black identity in the United States, especially since its subject matter is still a reality today due to the continued violence against Black bodies in contemporary American society. It’s easy to look into the combined faces of Burnley and Till, who would be in his early 80s today if he was still alive, and see how the memory of his murder has shaped the identity of generations of Black Americans. It’s simple yet multifaceted, and just as powerful as the more intricate collages found elsewhere in Multiplicity, showing that, even in its most stripped-down form, collage can be a vehicle for complex revelations.