Lisa Jarrett's first solo museum exhibition in Oregon, "Tenderhead," opens at an unspecified venue on May 21, 2026. The show features new works and site-responsive installations that explore Beauty Supply stores and salons as critical intersections of Black life, migration, and diaspora. Jarrett uses materials like pink kanekalon hair, pigment prints, foam rollers, and lace, treating the Beauty Supply as her art supply store and a living archive of memory and community.
The exhibition matters because it reframes mundane commercial spaces—Beauty Supply stores, salons, and kitchen sinks—as surrogate homelands and dynamic archives of Black familial and cultural history. By weaving together personal and collective narratives of migration and lost histories, Jarrett elevates overlooked sites into profound artistic and social commentary, offering a nuanced reply to the loaded question "Are you tenderheaded?"