One day, during one of Evans’s reoccurring visions, a voice came to the artist. In her recounting, it offered her two options: “Draw or die.” She chose the former, producing intricately detailed works like the trio on this wall, which she completed while employed on the grounds of a garden estate in her native North Carolina. Inspired by intense dreams and visions, Evans’s work often presents expressive faces adorned with floral designs or dots in patterned arrangements. These drawings provide a glimpse into the surreal space between the observable world and the more spiritual, dreamlike one with which Evans connected.

Gallery label from

Vital Signs: Artists and the Body, November 3–February 22, 2024

Medium Crayon and pencil on paper
Dimensions 11 1/2 × 9 5/8" (29.2 × 24.4 cm)
Credit Gift of Mrs. Nina Howell Starr
Object number 49.1997
Department Drawings and Prints

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Minnie Evans

Minnie Evans

American, 1892–1987 7 works online

From the age of six, she described being divinely guided while asleep through a spectacular subconscious world, the figures and settings of which would eventually become the subject of her work.

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