The artist Alvaro Barrington works to connect his personal history with that of the greater cultural zeitgeist. “Artists should not look to the right or left,” he once said. “Art should be strong and non-conformist and most importantly should always be personal.’” Born in Venezuela in 1983 and raised between the Carribean and New York, his paintings—which use materials such as burlap and postcards—are odes to periods of cultural exchange like the Harlem Renaissance and the Windrush Generation diaspora. More intimate are works dedicated to the Caribbean women who shaped his own identity. Barrington’s latest exhibition centers on the crack cocaine epidemic that plagued the U.S. during the 1980s and 1990s as well as the cultural responses from the Black community, so disproportionately affected. —Maggie Turner