Mary Lovelace O’Neal: Blacker Than a Hundred Midnights Down in a Cypress Swamp

Mary Lovelace O’Neal: Blacker Than a Hundred Midnights Down in a Cypress Swamp is a solo exhibition of work by Mary Lovelace O’Neal, presented at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 200 N Arthur Ashe Boulevard, Richmond, VA 23220. Runs through August 2, 2026. The exhibition brings together a significant body of work from a defining period in O’Neal’s practice, including large-scale lampblack paintings and works on paper. Known for her powerful abstract language, O’Neal uses layered black pigment, gesture, and atmosphere to create works that feel both expansive and intimate. Her materials and formal approach allow darkness to function not simply as color, but as space, force, mood, and meaning. Across the exhibition, O’Neal’s work reflects on interiority, spirituality, and the emotional depth of abstraction. The paintings invite sustained looking, revealing how scale, texture, and tonal intensity can carry psychological and spiritual weight. The exhibition also underscores O’Neal’s important place within the history of Black abstraction and contemporary American art.