'Let Me Fix You A Plate' Exhibit Explores Food, Heritage
May 30, 2025 10:34PM ● By Siena Giacoma
An exhibition at the Manhattan Beach Art Center turns the dining table into a powerful symbol of cultural memory, resilience, and community dialogue. "Let Me Fix You a Plate," an immersive installation by artist Keith Magruder, invites visitors to explore the intersections of food, storytelling, and Black heritage.
Blending visual art, oral history, and community engagement, Let Me Fix You a Plate transforms the Manhattan Beach Art Center into more than a gallery—it becomes a space of gathering, dialogue, and reflection on the legacies we inherit and the futures we shape.
Rooted in Magruder’s own family history, the exhibition draws inspiration from the stories and wisdom passed down by his grandmother—narratives shaped by love, resistance, and lived experience that are often absent from mainstream historical accounts. The artist transforms the gallery space into a familiar domestic setting, using the dining table as a central motif around which themes of memory and cultural transmission unfold.
At the heart of the installation is a critical engagement with local history. Magruder incorporates the story of Bruce’s Beach—a once-thriving Black-owned resort in Manhattan Beach that was seized from the Bruce family in the 1920s—to reflect on the erasure and reclamation of Black spaces. In doing so, the exhibition serves as both a tribute to Black prosperity and a meditation on injustice, survival, and renewal.
Employing trompe-l'œil techniques with paper and watercolor, Magruder meticulously recreates everyday kitchen objects, imbuing them with a sense of warmth and nostalgia. These hyper realistic renderings speak to the strength of home life and the cultural significance of food as a vessel for memory and identity.
Butterflies, suspended throughout the installation, offer a unifying visual and thematic element. Symbolizing ancestors, transformation, and migration, the butterflies serve as a metaphor for the African diaspora, drawing connections between the movement of people, the sharing of traditions, and the enduring influence of Black communities across generations.
A participatory component adds another layer to the experience: visitors are invited to paint their own butterfly at a dedicated table in the gallery. These contributions become part of the evolving installation, reinforcing the exhibition’s message that history is not solely archived, it is created and shared in the present.
Blending visual art, oral history, and community engagement, Let Me Fix You a Plate transforms the Manhattan Beach Art Center into more than a gallery—it becomes a space of gathering, dialogue, and reflection on the legacies we inherit and the futures we shape.
Let Me Fix You a Plate is on view at the Manhattan Beach Art Center until June 29, located at 1560 Manhattan Beach Boulevard. Admission is free and open to the public. Watercolor workshops with Keith Magruder will be held on June 7 at 10:00 a.m. (for ages 18 and up) and on June 7 at 2:00 p.m. (for teens).
For more information, visit the city's Exhibitions page or contact Cultural Arts Supervisor Randy Niessen.
