One of the countless harsh and unfair realities of being Black in America, as captured in the searing writing of Toni Morrison and the poetry of Tracy K. Smith, is that you can never let your guard down. Danger may crop up in an instant, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time can have disastrous consequences. In a moment of national reckoning with pervasive institutional racism, the Magical Realist paintings of Dominic Chambers capture the sanctity of Black leisure. The St. Louis-born, New Haven-based Chambers creates dreamy, large-scale works that fight back against toxic clichés, evoking a safe space of Black talent, creativity, mysticism, and peace. —J.V.