The Women of Central Avenue: Keepers of the Flame
May 1 @ 8:00 am - June 30 @ 9:00 pm
Women of Central Avenue: Keepers of the Flame — A Powerful New Art Exhibition Opens May 1 at the Historic Dunbar Hotel
Arts @ Delicious at The Dunbar · La Mancha Gallery · May 1 – June 30, 2026 4229 S. Central Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90011
Table of Contents
- The Women of Central Avenue Are Here
- About the Exhibition
- The Curatorial Frame: Three Generations, One Flame
- The Historic Dunbar Hotel: Where Excellence Has Always Had a Home
- Featured Women of Central Avenue Artists
- Opening Night: Live Jazz and Community
- Exhibition Details and How to Attend
- About La Mancha Gallery and Arts @ Delicious
1. The Women of Central Avenue Are Here
The Women of Central Avenue have kept this corridor’s cultural fire burning for generations — and this May, their work finally takes center stage.
The Women of Central Avenue: Keepers of the Flame is a landmark group art exhibition presented by La Mancha Gallery at Delicious at The Dunbar, inside the Historic Dunbar Hotel on South Central Avenue in Los Angeles. The exhibition opens Friday, May 1, 2026 and runs through June 30, 2026.
Eight women artists. Three generations. A wide range of media — painting, photography, assemblage, mixed media, and graphic work. One unbroken argument: these women kept the fire alive on one of Los Angeles’s most storied cultural corridors, and it is long past time the exhibition room reflected that truth.
2. About the Exhibition
A fire does not keep itself.
For decades, Central Avenue has been celebrated for its jazz legacy, its civil rights history, its role as the backbone of Black Los Angeles. But the women who did the daily work of keeping that culture alive — who painted the stories, photographed the faces, assembled beauty from discarded materials, and taught the next generation — have rarely been the subject of the exhibition itself.
The Women of Central Avenue: Keepers of the Flame changes that.
Curated by Omar Holguin, Founder and Curator of La Mancha Gallery, this exhibition brings together eight extraordinary women artists whose practices span painting, photography, assemblage, mixed media, and graphic arts. They do not all share a South Central birthplace. What they share is a relationship — to this Avenue, to this community, and to the ongoing work of cultural stewardship that no institution has adequately honored until now.
This is not a retrospective. It is a recognition.
3. The Curatorial Frame: Three Generations of Women of Central Avenue
The Women of Central Avenue: Keepers of the Flame is structured as a living timeline — a demonstration that the cultural fire of Central Avenue has been passed from hand to hand across decades.
The Elder — She Lit the First Flame
The exhibition opens with its elder anchor: a Pratt Institute-trained painter and photographer whose work is held in the Smithsonian Collection, the Getty Collection, and MOCA Los Angeles. Her collectors include some of the most recognized names in American culture. Rooted in affirmation, racial healing, and social justice, her practice has spent decades asking America to reckon with its unresolved history — and to imagine a more just future. She lights the first flame.
The Bridge — Forty Years of Holding the Line
The bridge generation is represented by an artist with over forty years of independent practice. A solo exhibition at the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles. Commissions from the Congressional Black Caucus, the March of Dimes, and Black Enterprise Magazine. Her layered acrylic and mixed media canvases incorporate historic periodicals and textiles, transforming each work into a visual storybook of resilience, hope, and empowerment. She is the connective tissue between what came before and what is being built now.
The Inheritors — Remaking the Avenue Right Now
Five artists represent the present generation of the Women of Central Avenue — each with a distinct practice, a distinct voice, and a distinct relationship to this corridor:
A mixed media visionary from South Central whose work is rooted in healing and the power of dreaming in difficult conditions. A surrealist portrait painter who builds acrylic canvases that center Black beauty, culture, and the depths of Black experience. An assemblage artist who creates from found and discarded materials, turning ancestral knowledge into tangible, physical art. A figurative painter and graphic artist who spent years at the highest levels of the entertainment industry before returning fully to her first calling. A photographer and painter who has been recording the beauty of the world through her lens since 1976.
Together, they represent the living, active flame of Central Avenue’s creative legacy.
4. The Historic Dunbar Hotel: Where Excellence Has Always Had a Home
There is no more fitting venue for an exhibition about the Women of Central Avenue than the Historic Dunbar Hotel.
Built in 1928, the Dunbar was the first luxury hotel west of the Mississippi to welcome Black guests during an era of segregation. Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, Joe Louis — the full roster of mid-century Black excellence passed through these doors because this building offered what most of Los Angeles would not: dignity, welcome, and a space to be fully themselves.
The Dunbar has always been a safe haven for excellence the wider world was not yet ready to celebrate. This exhibition continues that tradition.
Delicious at The Dunbar — the restaurant and event venue operating within the Historic Dunbar Hotel — has served as the home of La Mancha Gallery’s Arts @ Delicious program since September 2025. The program presents curated fine art exhibitions in the venue’s public spaces, making original artwork accessible to the community in a living, breathing, neighborhood destination on South Central Avenue.
5. Featured Women of Central Avenue Artists
The eight confirmed artists in this exhibition bring decades of combined practice, institutional recognition, and community commitment to these walls. Visit their work online and come prepared to encounter it in person:
- Buena Johnson — Painter, photographer, and instructor. Smithsonian, Getty, and MOCA Los Angeles collections.
- Diana Shanon Young — Textured acrylic and mixed media. Solo exhibition at the Museum of African American Art, Los Angeles.
- Nina Syii — Mixed media visionary from South Central Los Angeles.
- Christen Austin — Surrealist acrylic portraiture centered in Black beauty and experience.
- Skira Martinez — Assemblage and multidisciplinary artist working with found and discarded materials.
- Riea Owens — Figurative painter and graphic artist. Former Senior Art Director, The WB/CW Networks and E! Entertainment.
- Gail Oliver — Photographer, painter, and graphic artist. Shooting since 1976.
- X. Darvi — To be featured. Follow for updates.
A ninth artist slot remains open and will be announced as the exhibition opening approaches.
6. Opening Night: Live Jazz and the Women of Central Avenue
The opening reception for The Women of Central Avenue: Keepers of the Flame takes place on Friday, May 1, 2026 at Delicious at The Dunbar.
The evening will feature a live jazz activation — not as background music, but as a co-curator. Central Avenue is the birthplace of West Coast jazz. The music that filled these blocks during the Avenue’s golden era is part of the same cultural legacy these eight women have spent their careers honoring and extending. Jazz reminds the room that the flame on these walls has always had a sound.
A closing reception tied to Mother’s Day weekend is also under consideration. As an exhibition dedicated to women who have nurtured and protected a cultural legacy across generations, the resonance is organic and intentional.
The Central Avenue Jazz Festival — the annual celebration of this corridor’s musical heritage — remains one of the defining events of South Los Angeles’s cultural calendar. The Women of Central Avenue: Keepers of the Flame joins that tradition of honoring what this Avenue has always meant to the city.
7. Exhibition Details and How to Attend
Exhibition: The Women of Central Avenue: Keepers of the Flame Presented by: La Mancha Gallery / Arts @ Delicious at The Dunbar Opening Reception: Friday, May 1, 2026 Exhibition Run: May 1 – June 30, 2026 Venue: Delicious at The Dunbar, Historic Dunbar Hotel Address: 4229 S. Central Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90011 Admission: Free and open to the public during venue hours
Reserve your spot for the opening reception and stay up to date on all exhibition events at lamancha.events/delicious.
Artwork displayed throughout the exhibition is available for purchase. All sales inquiries are handled directly by La Mancha Gallery. Interested collectors may reach out via lamancha.events/delicious.
8. About La Mancha Gallery and Arts @ Delicious
La Mancha Gallery is an independent curatorial practice founded in 2006 by Omar Holguin on Central Avenue in Los Angeles. Operating under the Alternative Venue Exhibition Model, La Mancha has presented over 200 curated exhibitions across more than 100 non-traditional venue partners — including hotels, restaurants, community centers, festival pavilions, and embassies — in nearly two decades of continuous operation.
The Arts @ Delicious at The Dunbar program launched in September 2025 with a solo exhibition by twelve-time Emmy Award winner and Grammy recipient Jimmy Velarde. The program presents rotating fine art exhibitions within the public spaces of Delicious at The Dunbar, with artwork changing approximately twice monthly and a new exhibition cycle launching each season.
The Women of Central Avenue: Keepers of the Flame is the third major exhibition cycle in the Arts @ Delicious program and the most ambitious to date.
Follow La Mancha Gallery and stay connected with the Women of Central Avenue: my.linkpod.site/Women
Eight artists. Three generations. One unbroken flame. The Women of Central Avenue are here — and they have always been here.
Curated by Omar Holguin · Founder & Curator, La Mancha Gallery