If anyone had consulted me, I would have suggested that the show “4 Artists of Distinction” at the African American Museum be titled “4 Artists of Color” -- not because artists Barbara Bullock, Charles Burwell, James Dupree and Martina Johnson-Allen are African American, but because each one communicates through persuasive, forceful color choices. Color in complex variety, gold-suffused analogous harmonies or monochrome presentations of white, scarlet or indigo, make the single most powerful impression in the show as a whole.

The work of this quartet reflects maturity and a range and depth of concepts. Each moves easily from two to three dimensions. Barbara Bullock cuts, paints and layers paper. She seamlessly appropriates patterns in fiber, shape and color inspired by frequent travels to places like Africa, Mexico and Brazil. Joyfully flamboyant surfaces are decorated with beads, metal and other small items. The sense of freedom is greatest when Bullock mounts the figures of dancers and animals directly on the wall.

Beauty Parlor (2002), a medium-relief in a deep frame, is an homage to formidable women and great traditions of African female beauty. Each persona is unique, from eyes outlined as Egyptian hieroglyphs with a spiraling extension to the lid to cowrie shell eyes, which are common in African sculpture (cowries are also specifically identified with the female in some groups), to angled golden eyes illuminating dark faces. Toward the bottom of the gathering is a blue fish woman, perhaps an orisha.

Possibly the most consistently sculptural artist, Martina Johnson-Allen contributes a clothing-based series devoted to seven crone archetypes. The monochrome sculptural garments reflect many cultures. A bone-dry white paper corset or bustier patterned in black, and rich black velvet pantaloons and sleeves in Crone V's outfit (2002) offer an exquisite textural contrast. On vertical ribs, drawings of plant forms segue into depictions of a woman merged with vegetation, perhaps.

Luxurious pooling satin skirts for Crone VI (deep violet) and Crone VII (medium cobalt blue) suggest Beverly Semmes' clothing works, but Johnson-Allen's scale is more human and more detail-oriented, covering bodices with beads, leaves, buttons or tufts of raffia. The seven crones are again depicted in miniature with accessories and packets of magical materials in an ingenious box construction work. Johnson-Allen is also showing engaging book works: white lace books of Math Notes with satin rosebuds and an accordion book with beaded pages.

James Dupree's personal notation incorporates an affinity for angular shapes. From the mid-1990s, a series of abstracted paintings, such as NFGA Twins (1996), layers acrylic on wood so thickly that it attains a striking, stained-glass translucency. Gold underlayers refract light through crystalline structures that are organized in nesting vertical rectangles often containing shapes alluding to the human figure.

A series of cubist-related still lifes (paintings and prints), "Stolen Dreams and Forbidden Fruits" (2000), displayed in the larger, third-level extension of the exhibition, has a more contained golden/amber tonality. Dupree's long-term interest in faces is evident in his "Spirit Houses" series (1999). Face fragments are displayed in wall-mounted boxes containing collage elements from jewelry to bones. S.P. 46/48 (1996-98) is an installation of well-worn, upside-down brooms transformed into human figures with faces on the bases and bristles for hair. The effect is both humorous and unsettling.

In a piece of wall text, Charles Burwell says that he is drawn to "spatial complexities." That's exactly what he paints but his explorations become more than intellectual exercises. They are ruminations on perceptual complexity with a subtly mystical edge that simultaneously comments on science, commercial patterns (as in fabrics) and sacred objects such as mazes and mandalas designed to facilitate meditation.

Bio Labyrinth No. 10 (1996-97) contrasts orderly diagrams with occasional forays into painterly execution, again suggesting the order and chaos of nature as well as how those qualities operate in the human mind. Untitled (2002) has a layer of multicolored stripes overlaid with a central section in color and framed in slightly asymmetrical side panels of black and white. A sense of secret calligraphy contrasts with Burwell's transparently diagrammatic execution.

Sketchbooks by all the artists are included in the exhibition, and Burwell's work is additionally enriched by a surprisingly engaging display of stencils and templates used in making his paintings.

Like Burwell -- though he is a clear-cut example -- each of these prolific artists demonstrates a noteworthy commitment to layering, sometimes concealing while embellishing. Does this pervasive metaphor have similar meanings for all four? Impossible to say; however, traditional African stories frequently center on a trickster who speaks ambiguously, conveying messages contrary to the words he utters. Riddling communication and the ability to penetrate all kinds of façades were, historically, assets to Africans in the United States. Perhaps an increased sensitivity to layers within layers reflects a continuity of understanding for several artists in this group.