Elisabeth C. Miller Library – Connecting gardeners to information

Lila Thomas: Nested ~ August 4 – 28, 2025

Lila’s work explores themes of identity, family history, and cultural exchange through food, music, and mutual understanding of generational trauma. While living in Seattle she has found a sense of community with folks throughout different diasporas. Connecting over topics like food, shared culture, and music has been healing to her sense of being. She feels grounded being around people who share a sense of understanding and wants to share an honest representation of their identity by creating an intimate and immersive setting for the viewer.

She creates this intimate and immersive experience by using light and color to depict familiar spaces of her life with visual beauty. She achieves this by emphasizing the steady movement of light in the composition. She enjoys giving hints about the subject’s interests and identity by including objects of importance to the individual.

Lila’s driven to create these honest and beautiful depictions due to the lack of representation of Black and queer folks in comfort and ease in the canon of Western art. She wants her work to act as a vessel of escapism for people who have faced generational trauma and injustices in our society because they deserve a sense of solace too.

A closing reception will be held on Thursday, August 28th from 3-5pm where visitors can meet the artist and learn more about their work.

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Open to everyone. Open hours.
Address: 3501 NE 41st St., Seattle, WA, 98105
Location: Center for Urban Horticulture. CUH Map.
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