Amaza Lee Meredith had no formal training in art or architecture due to the harsh reality of life under the Jim Crow era as a Black woman. Nevertheless, Meredith left her legacy as an art educator at Virginia State University, the first known Black woman to work as an architect and an accomplished artist.

Now, her work is the focus of an exhibition at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work was part of the institute’s fall premiere last Friday evening and will remain on display until March 9, 2025.

The group exhibition known as “Dear Mazie” tours the romanticized lens of Meredith’s early life and legacy, her relationship with her life partner, former dean of VSU’s School of Education, Edna Meade Colson, through lettered-style plaques, abstract artwork and elements of nature. The major source of inspiration for “Dear Mazie” was Meredith’s iconic design and primary residence, Azurest South, an iconic mid-century modern home with turquoise roofing that the artist lived in with Colson until her death in 1984.

ICA’s senior art curator, Amber Esseiva, spent almost four years on the project by researching through letters, photos and architectural blueprints in Meredith’s 5,000-piece archive at VSU. Esseiva then invited 11 contemporary artists, architects and designers to bring the project to life. The collective also includes Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood, Joseph Cuillier and Shani Peters, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Kapwani Kiwanga, Abigail Lucien, Tschabalala Self and Cauleen Smith.

“I wanted to have fun with it and first and foremost create new things that were inspired by her work and not just … indebted to some kind of truth,” Esseiva said during a tour of the exhibit. “Being Black there is a certain amount of oppression, even now … it’s more important to me what she [Meredith] was able to build out of that.”

Meredith was born in Lynchburg in 1895 to a Black mother and white father, when interracial relationships were illegal in Virginia. She graduated top of her class at the now-defunct Jackson High School, despite the family’s grief with Meredith’s father taking his own life due to the scrutiny he faced from having an interracial marriage with a Black woman. Meredith went on to become a teacher and accomplished artist, where she exhibited her work at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and in galleries in New York and North Carolina.

“Seeing [Meredith’s] story is extremely impactful, special and inspiring,” said artist and muralist Austin Auz Miles, who is based in Petersburg and Richmond.

Despite Meredith earning her bachelor’s degree at Columbia University, the artist was discouraged from attending architectural schools due to her race and gender, so she taught herself the architectural designs of International Style, a modern architectural design with characteristics of minimalism and functionalism, mid-century modernism and seaside cottages with a Cape Cod coastal flare.

“I don’t think that having formal, or institutional or collegiate training, fairly means that an artist is less or more than capable of having a career in the arts,” Miles said. “I also feel that formality is a way to keep people from access to the arts and [Meredith] broke barriers in that.”

Meredith not only designed her Azurest South, but she also developed Azurest North, a beachfront community for middle class African Americans in Sag Harbor, N.Y.

“I think it’s really powerful,” said architectural artist Emanuel Admassu on Meredith’s self-teaching on architecture. “We want to have an expansive understanding of what a spatial practice is and she helps us reimagine that.”

Esseiva said she hopes “Dear Mazie” will introduce Meredith’s work to wider audiences, while continuing her mission of supporting Black artists through the commission of new pieces in response to her work.

“This is basically … a very big letter to a very incredible person,” Esseiva said during the premiere. “It’s only the beginning. This story needs to be told and we’re lucky to be the institution that was able to tell this story.”