Carolyn Mazloomi and Sharon Kerry-Harlan
Certain Restrictions Do Apply
Claire Oliver Gallery, New York
January 9 - March 7, 2026
Madam C. J. Walker, 2025
76 x 77.5 inches
Cotton fabric, cotton batt, poly-cotton thread, India ink;
printed, stenciled, hand painting, machine quilted
© Carolyn Mazloomi, courtesy Claire Oliver Gallery
African American Gothic, 2025
20 x 16 x 1.5 inches
Acrylic paint and silk screens on rusted fabric,
incorporating found objects,
mounted on a black canvas-wrapped wood frame
© Sharon Kerry-Harlan, courtesy Claire Oliver Gallery
Claire Oliver Gallery presents Certain Restrictions Do Apply, a landmark two-person textile exhibition featuring new works by artists Carolyn Mazloomi and Sharon Kerry-Harlan. The exhibition presents 9 new artworks and celebrates decades of friendship and collaboration between the two artists; both Mazloomi and Kerry-Harlan mine the history of Black American pioneers and expand the narrative and formal possibilities of quiltmaking and textile art.
Though distinct in approach, Carolyn Mazloomi and Sharon Kerry-Harlan share a commitment to storytelling through fiber, exploring race, culture, memory, and belonging. Their works reposition quilting not as domestic craft or woman’s work but as a powerful conceptual and political practice. The two artists have also been close friends for decades, sharing conversations, critiques, and creative support that have shaped their respective journeys — making their first New York presentation together both professionally significant and personally meaningful.
“Textiles have an inherent humanity,” said Carolyn Mazloomi. “A quilt holds touch, time, labor, and story — it holds lives. The histories of the people I depict are sewn into the fabric itself. Quilts speak on behalf of those whose voices might otherwise go unheard.”
“Memory is layered,” said Sharon Kerry-Harlan. “In fabric, I find the ability to embed echoes — of family, of the past, of cultural inheritance. My work is about carrying forward what must not be forgotten, but also making space for reinterpretation.”
Mazloomi’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in textile history, social documentation and activism. She is the founder of the African American Quilt Guild of Los Angeles and the Women of Color Quilters Network, has authored numerous significant publications, and is shaping the national discourse around quilting as a respected contemporary art form. Likewise, Kerry-Harlan brings a unique material sensibility: her rust-dyed surfaces, pattern language, and incorporation of found fabrics create visual fields where ancestry and cosmopolitan rhythm coexist.
“Carolyn and Sharon are among the most important narrative textile artists working today,” said Claire Oliver, founder of Claire Oliver Gallery. “This exhibition honors not only their individual legacies, but the creative dialogue and mutual trust between them. Their friendship and artistic respect for one another amplify the power of the work, and we are proud to present this historic first joint exhibition in New York.”
Together, their works form a visual conversation, not only between artwork and viewer, but between two women who have influenced one another’s practices, celebrated each other’s achievements, and remain connected by a shared purpose: to preserve histories and affirm identity through the language of stitched and constructed cloth.
ARTIST CAROLYN MAZLOOMI
Based in West Chester, Ohio, Carolyn Mazloomi is an artist, curator, and writer. Her practice is rooted in the quilting tradition, using textiles—a personal and metaphorical material—to communicate the stories of individuals who have made significant contributions to social justice and landmark events that have shaped American history. She is the founder of the African American Quilt Guild of Los Angeles and the Women of Color Quilters Network, and a former board member of the Studio Art Quilt Associates and Alliance for American Quilters. Over the course of her career, Mazloomi has had solo exhibitions at institutions and galleries across the country including the Los Angeles Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Kenyon College, Gambier, OH; Kent State University, Kent, OH; Malcom Brown Gallery, Shaker Heights, OH; University of Michigan, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Ann Arbor, MI; and Quilters Hall of Fame, Marion, IN.
Mazloomi’s work is in the public collections of the American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY; Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Birmingham, AL; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, OH; Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY; National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, TN; National Endowment for the Arts Washington, D.C.; Quilters Hall of Fame Museum, Madison, IN; The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Smithsonian Museum of African American Culture and History, Washington, D.C., among others. Mazloomi is the author of several books, and has most recently published Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium (2019), Yours for Race and Country: Reflections on the Life of Colonel Charles Young (2019), We Who Believe in Freedom (2020), We Are the Story: A Visual Response to Racism (2021), and Black Pioneers: Legacy in the American West (2022).
ARTIST SHARON KERRY-HARLAN
Sharon Kerry-Harlan (b. 1951, Miami, FL) is a visual artist living and working between Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and Hollywood, Florida. Raised in a family of artists, Harlan learned quilting from her mother and elements of design and abstraction from her uncle, an artist and designer. She integrates traditional quilting techniques with contemporary approaches to fabric manipulation to create her signature ‘rust-dyed’, monochromatic large-scale textile works for which she is celebrated.
Kerry-Harlan’s textile work, mixed-media collages, paintings, and figurative objects—such as the Black Eyed Pea dolls—are deeply informed by race, history, and the socio-political landscape. Her artistic practice centers on designing her own textile patterns and fabrics, sometimes incorporating found and inherited materials into her compositions that balance geometric forms, figurative elements, and intricate patterns. Inspired by her African diasporic heritage, the rhythm of modern metropolitan life, and the interplay between historical narratives and contemporary events, Kerry-Harlan positions herself as a keeper and translator of information and histories, crafting visual narratives that convey multifaceted perspectives. Her work transcends temporal boundaries, fostering a dialogue that bridges the past and present.
Sharon Kerry-Harlan holds a BA from Marquette University and studied art at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, both located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her work is part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and she has exhibited at numerous national and international institutions, including the Harn Museum (Gainesville, FL), the Racine Art Museum (Racine, WI), the Erie Art Museum (Erie, PA), the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center (Wilberforce, OH), and the California State Museum (Sacramento, CA), among others.
CLAIRE OLIVER GALLERY
2288 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, New York, NY 10030
