Pam Douglas ǀ Raya Yarbrough
Improper Ideology
September 3- 27, 2025
Opening Reception
Saturday, September 6, 2025 5-8pm
Concerts: Sept 5, 13, 20, 26 at 8PM
Books and recordings available for purchase.
The Artists Gallery (TAG)
5458 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles CA, 90036
“…prayer as protest, optimism amid collapse, beauty in broken places— rooted in personal resistance, and the restorative act of care.” Shana Nys Dambrot
TAG Gallery presents IMPROPER IDEOLOGY, a groundbreaking exhibition and concert series by visual artist Pam Douglas and composer-poet Raya Yarbrough, on view September 3–27, 2025. The mother-daughter duo merges painting, sculpture, poetry, and music into immersive experiences that confront grief, cultural erasure, and environmental collapse with radical tenderness and artistic defiance.
“Improper Ideology unfolds in intertwined forms—the fusion of poetry and painting, and its expression as an exhibition and an artist’s book,” writes art critic Shana Nys Dambrot in the exhibition essay. “Each stands alone, yet all elements mirror and magnify one another—layers of testimony shaped by the enduring creative dialogue between visual artist Pam Douglas and her daughter, singer/songwriter Raya Yarbrough.”
Their collaboration began in 2018, when Douglas’s Artifacts of Grace inspired a poetic response from Yarbrough. Since then, their creative dialogue has evolved into a non-hierarchical practice in which image, text, and sound coexist across installation, performance, and print. The result is a multi-sensory environment that viewers experience like a poem or prayer—quiet, layered, and deeply resonant.
Douglas’s mixed media works—crafted from silk, wood, charcoal, and acrylic paint on raw linen—don’t illustrate Yarbrough’s poems; they embody them. Longer texts unfold across multiple sculptures, drawing the viewer into movement and reflection. In For So Long, seven tree branches emerge from the gallery wall, each bearing fragments of verse. I Wish You This Afternoon surrounds visitors with six hanging panels, forming a cocoon of imagery and language. Spiritual, altar-like environments evoke memory, mourning, and transformation.
Yarbrough’s poetry—lyrical, precise, and unflinching—explores displacement, survival, and identity. Her words echo inherited trauma and collective resilience: “I remember a place I’ve never been / but I exist because of it.” Known for her work on Outlander, Battlestar Galactica, and The Rings of Power, Yarbrough brings her voice and musicality to four evening performances, singing her poems accompanied by a string quintet. These concerts extend the exhibition into sound, animating the space with emotional urgency and grace.
While rooted in personal history, Improper Ideology transcends biography to address broader social truths. Douglas and Yarbrough offer not escape but engagement—art as a space of inquiry, care, and resistance. The exhibition affirms that beauty and protest are not opposites, but partners.
An accompanying artist’s book offers a more intimate way to encounter the work beyond the gallery. All proceeds from art, books, and recordings will benefit organizations working toward compassion and justice.
Pam Douglas is a Los Angeles-based artist whose mixed media practice focuses on humanitarian themes. Her work has been exhibited at the California African American Museum, LACMA, and the USC Fisher Museum. A Professor Emerita at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, she has received support from the Puffin Foundation, Mozaik Philanthropy, and others.
Raya Yarbrough is an award-winning singer, composer, and poet whose work bridges music, narrative, and verse. A graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music, she has performed internationally and published widely in both music and literary forms.
TAG Gallery is a contemporary artist-run space in Los Angeles’s Miracle Mile district. Founded in 1993, TAG is a nonprofit arts cooperative dedicated to showcasing new media, techniques, and voices from regional and international artists. The gallery is open Wednesday through Sunday.
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