By: John Guess
The Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC) is delighted to present from August 29- December 15, 2025 Danny Simmons’ The Journey to Everything Curated by John Guess, Jr. and Co-Curated by Danielle Finnerman and Chayse Sampy’s Who Feels It, Knows It, Curated by Danielle Finnerman.
In The Journey to Everything Philadelphia based Neo-African Abstract Expressionist painter, poet, novelist, philanthropist and Tony Award winning producer Danny Simmons explores themes of diaspora, ancestral memory, and Black spirituality in the paintings and works on bark cloth on view.
The title of the exhibition and its painting, The Journey to Everything, is both preface to the show and an enjambed line of poetry, to use a poetic term for an unfinished thought that flows into the next line, but that could stand on its own. Simmons is a working poet with five collections and one on the way. He is inviting you, not to consume the art, but to participate in bringing it to life.
The title prepares us for the plenitude to come: collages on paper and canvas, with juxtaposed dots of paint and Ankara fabric, Bogolan mud cloth from Mali, paper cutouts of visible and partially visible faces, Congolese bark cloth, neon lace, gestural lines, and splashes of color on single frames and triptychs.
From permutations of the song from a civil rights march in “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,” to migration in “Take the Long Way Home,” and maps of a rainforest in “Ituri Forest”, Simmons has produced work that reflects his inner life and receptive mien.
Organized by James Cavello and the Westwood Gallery NYC, Curated by John Guess, Jr. and Co-curated by Danielle Finnerman, the exhibition puts Simmons’ multimedia paintings in conversation with a selection of African objects from the artist’s personal collection.
According to Guess, “This work is a dynamic step forward for Simmons; work that had an impressive exhibition at the Reginald Lewis African American Museum in Baltimore. We were fortunate to get The Journey to Everything scheduled for this year.”
Chayse Sampy’s Who Feels It, Knows It is the perfect comple-
