Inside Purcell House, A Homecoming Years in the Making

Photographed by KidBrody

When Amadeus Purcell picked up a camera nearly a decade ago, he couldn't have imagined where it would take him. What began as a passion for photography evolved into a career capturing fashion editorials, celebrities, and campaigns, earning publication credits in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and WWD. His work carried him far beyond his hometown of Eden, North Carolina, building a portfolio that reflects years of dedication to fashion, portraiture, and editorial storytelling. For many artists, reaching those milestones is the destination but for Purcell, they became the foundation for something much larger.

This summer, he returned home to North Carolina to open Purcell House, the first Black-owned portrait studio and fine art gallery in downtown Eden's Leaksville Historic District. The opening marked a historic milestone for the city.

For years, Amadeus had built a career documenting other people. Yet returning home forced him to confront the absence of intentional documentation within his own family and community. "Around August last year, I lost my grandmother, the matriarch of my family," he says. "During that period, I had a life-shattering realization: the last nine years of my career were spent capturing people and pouring into spaces completely foreign to me. In exchange, I was now back home feeling foreign to a world I once knew."

As he looked around Eden, Purcell began identifying the things he wished had existed while he was growing up. A dedicated space for Black artists to exhibit their work. A place where young creatives could see artist who looked like them. Somewhere families could invest in portraiture not as a luxury, but as a way of preserving their own histories.

"I began exploring what had changed during my years away and quickly discovered a gap I knew I had to fill. The absence of Black family portraits and physical prints as a serious cultural practice. A space for the community to experience the work of full-time Black artists of all mediums as well as a place for young Black kids to see the possibility of a successful career in the arts and somewhere to learn, connect, and sharpen their skills without having to leave."

In 2019, Purcell began talking with his grandmother about opening a photography studio one day. She always believed it belonged in Eden. At the time, he wasn't convinced. "I've had the idea of opening a photo studio since 2019," he says. "It was something I never lost sight of, something I spent many years discussing with my family. My grandmother was the one who often told me it should be here, at home. At the time, I didn't have the foresight that she had."

"I went into this project with one plan, and then something shifted. It was as if all my ancestors reminded me of the places I've been, the faces I've photographed, the spaces I've worked in. How all of those things were pointing toward a bigger picture that I wasn't adjusting my focus to actually see."

Eventually, he understood what that bigger picture was."When I finally did see it, I understood that this wasn't about opening a business in my hometown. This was about fulfilling a calling that had been whispered to me long before I was ready to hear it. The studio is one part of it, but Purcell House as an institution, as a home for Black creatives and the community that sustains them, that's what I was actually meant to build. That's what my grandmother knew all along."

That philosophy shaped every decision behind the gallery's inaugural exhibition, HOMECOMING. While the exhibition features sixteen contemporary Black artists from North Carolina and beyond, the title speaks to something much larger than a return to one place.

"Homecoming holds deep meaning for Black Americans in the South," Purcell explains. "Whether at your home church, old high school, or local HBCU, it means the same thing: a chance for everyone to return, to celebrate connection, to catch up on lost time. Something to look forward to every year. That's exactly what I aimed to do with this exhibition and community."

For Purcell, creating that sense of belonging is inseparable from supporting Black artists.

"So many Black artists have to fight to fit themselves into predominantly white art spaces in hopes their work is seen and valued. But the reality is that the Black community is one large, ever-expanding art community." That same sense of community is reflected in Purcell House's location. Directly across the street sits Square Kutz, the first Black-owned barbershop in downtown Eden, opened by Purcell's father alongside Mr. Eddie Brown, father of actress and television personality Tabitha Brown. Nearly a decade ago, one of Purcell's earliest opportunities behind the camera was photographing the ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the shop's opening.

Today, he can look out from Purcell House and see that same storefront. "I think about what it meant for my father to cut the ribbon on the first Black-owned shop in our city's history while I nervously captured those photos, barely knowing how to work my camera," he says. "Neither of us could have imagined that nine years later, I'd be opening the first Black-owned photo studio and fine art gallery in the city's history, on a historic street built over 100 years ago, in the same city where my ancestors existed as slaves. It's more than I could have ever imagined."

The gallery's name carries that same sense of inheritance. Purcell is a middle name shared by his grandfather, father, brother, and himself, making Purcell House less about one person's accomplishment than a family's legacy. "'Purcell House' was meant to symbolize a feeling of home passed down generation to generation," he says. "I hope that 20 to 30 years from now, it continues to serve as home for Black creatives, a place to feel safe, seen, and celebrated. I pray it becomes somewhere kids beg their parents to visit, a place to discover what art is coming from their own community."

While conversations around Black art often center on representation and visibility, Purcell believes the next chapter requires something deeper. It requires artists to build spaces that will continue serving their communities long after they are gone."Being seen is amazing," he says. "But when the infrastructure is in place, you can be experienced in ways that weren't possible before. It's essential that we as Black artists not only break through a door but create a clear pathway for those who come after us, so their path isn't as difficult. That could mean sharing the knowledge we've acquired, explaining our processes, giving exposure, or creating spaces that will outlive us. Anything but gatekeeping."

In many ways, Purcell House is exactly that. A portrait studio. A fine art gallery. A gathering place. But above all, it is a reminder that the most enduring creative work isn't always the image hanging on the wall. Sometimes it's the space that makes those images, and the people behind them, possible in the first place.

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