Shanequa Gay
About:
Her work draws upon ritual and personal memory, storytelling, fantasy, and the deep well of southern black traditions found in her home place of Atlanta. Gay’s fodder is play, indigenous belief systems and the spirit of African-Ascendant Womyn and girls finding Divinity in self. She is invested in counter narratives, mythology, and the expansion of the black imaginary. Gay engages in this practice through installations, paintings, performance, photography, video and monumental sculptural figures.
Gay holds an MFA from Georgia State University and a BA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Gay’s accomplishments include selection for OFF THE WALL, a city-wide Civil Rights and Social Justice Mural initiative led by the Atlanta Super Bowl Host Committee (2019). Her recent exhibitions include the European Cultural Centre Personal Structures-REFLECTION, 59th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, (2022); Atlanta Biennial, Atlanta Contemporary (2021); Le Monde Bossale, Montreal, Canada, in (2021); Adorned, McColl Center for Arts and Innovation, Charlotte (2020); and Holding Space for Nobility: A Memorial for Breonna Taylor, Ackland Museum, Chapel Hill North Carolina (2020).
Gay exhibits her works and procures residencies within the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Africa. She is a Do-Good Fellow recipient, an Emory University Arts and Social Justice Fellow, (2020) and a Hudgens Prize Finalist (2022). Currently, Gay is a visiting Professor at Spelman College and the Inaugural Visual Artist-in-Residence at Oglethorpe University, 2022-23.