Robert Pruitt reaches for the Black American experience through transcendent, mythological, and divine imagery. “That sense of the unnatural, the super, the extra-human possibility,” he has said, “I want that to be part of my practice as a way to describe what we could be.” Born in 1975, Pruitt grew up in Houston, then moved to New York after college. His large-scale figurative portraits resist stereotype, and instead make references to comic books, Afrofuturism, science fiction, and social struggles. It’s Pruitt’s way of crafting the humanity he’s often found lacking in traditional Black representation. This exhibition in Houston marks a return to his hometown, and features more than 120 works exploring Pruitt’s vision for a radical and radiant Black identity. —Maggie Turner