Shanequa Gay | Jackson Fe Art

Contents:

• HOMETOWN PRI AND SORROW OVERLAP SHANEQUA GAY’S ARTWORK
• ART + ARTISTS
• SHANEQUA GAY
• SHANEQUA GAY ART GALLERY
• SHANEQUA GAY: THOUGHT AND MEMORY
• SHANEQUA GAY NAMED ARTIST--RINCE AT OGLETHORPE UNIVERSY
• OGLETHORPE MM BUTS NEW WORK OM ACCLAIMED ARTIST SHANEQUA GAY
• SHANEQUA GAY’S NEW EXHIB SPIRED BY HER ANCTORS AND SOUTHERN BLACK TRADNS
• SHANEQUA GAY
• CREATIVE RINCE: SHANEQUA GAY’S STUNNG COVID-19 STALLATN, PHOTOS

HOMETOWN PRI AND SORROW OVERLAP SHANEQUA GAY’S ARTWORK

BIOGRAPHYArtist Shanequa Gay works patg, illtratn, vio, performance, and monumental sculpture. Atlanta artist Shanequa Gay, 44, serv a look no matter what the ocsn.

ART + ARTISTS

Gay leads wh an unapologetic sweetns rooted a fay life found, she says, “to help, love and thk about others.

”Hometown joy and heartbreakNo homegrown artist has ever celebrated the quirks, the culture, the strong ve of Black creativy nng through the cy terms so enarg mak your cht puff wh “The Betiful Tale of Atlannahland” llag, featured a show at Jackson Fe Art last year, are exhib A Gay’s bone-ep Atlanta llaged works are a mix of var media cludg photography, pat and waterlor.

And she often Photoshop and other graphic sign tools to create lorful fantasias that blur the le between realy and “Atlannahland” hybrids feature ltle Black girls wearg “crowns” of Atlanta adoratn ftooned wh what Gay lls “the joys of my childhood”: Rich’s Pk Pig, Now and Later ndi, Lik-m-aid Fun Dip and Trappey’s hot edn, tled “Reverg Maynard, ” sold out at Jackson Fe Art and grew her llector base to clu Dallas At, alongsi prev llectors Samuel L. Jackson, Michelle Obama, Los Angel ntemporary art llector Arthur Lewis, actor Charl Michael Davis and Elton “Atlannahland, ” Gay b playful imagery spired by her childhood wh elements rooted Ain Amerin and Ain inty. “When I me up wh this Atlannahland, I began to thk about what I nsir magil about the cy, ” says Gay, a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Dign wh an MFA om Geia State she’s not the type to jt herald her Atlannahland love.

SHANEQUA GAY

Gay superimposed the ey of the iends and fai of Atlanta child murr victims and thor Jam Baldw, who wrote extensively about the murrs, onto her seri me to her while watchg children play Perkerson Park several years ago and thkg about their absolute glee, which ntrasted so sharply wh the danger she felt lurkg around the margs of her childhood.

SHANEQUA GAY ART GALLERY

“There were people burstg to tears, ” says Co-op Art Atlanta curator Courtney Bombeck, who prented the llag a recent pop-up exhibn at the Buckhead menswear shop Maison another tribute to the cy of her birth, the 2019 Hammonds Hoe exhibn “L Whout Sherman: A Love Letter to the Wt End, ” Gay honored her granny’s Oak Street stompg nods to the pastoral tradn of toile and s quat visn of untry life, Gay replaced shepherds and kmaids wh the men and women of the Wt End — the Spelman unrgrads, the pie-sellg Natn of Islam, lol hero like artist Sue Ross and Andrew Young. Qutng power imbalanceGay was a Grady baby.

SHANEQUA GAY: THOUGHT AND MEMORY

”After they divorced when Gay was 18, her mother married a pastor and earned a doctorate divy.

SHANEQUA GAY NAMED ARTIST--RINCE AT OGLETHORPE UNIVERSY

“I’m not as relig as my mother, ” says Gay.

“Those qutns led me to the work I do now, ” she 2019 shows “i-she-atn” at Chasta Arts Center and “The Devout Grt, Emotnal Keeper” at Buckhead’s Anne O Art, Gay offered her own rrective to a church signed to prop up male sculptur, patgs and stallatns, she imaged women and girls as spirual forc.

OGLETHORPE MM BUTS NEW WORK OM ACCLAIMED ARTIST SHANEQUA GAY

Wearg er and bull heads that obscured their inty, her female figur reprented the power of the symbolic, the work, says Gay, was a rponse to Gloria Steem’s observatn that women and animals, formerly seen as i ancient religns, have been hobbled and ntered over ’s work serv to rtore and reclaim power, and central to that effort is the Black is what first ptured the attentn of curator Karen Comer Lowe, who clud Gay’s work exhibns at Chasta Art Center and the downtown public art exhibn “The South Got Somethg to Say.

” asks Gay about the lgerg impact of the Atlanta child murrs that hnted her childhood.

”That sense of unrolve ns through the new work Gay is creatg for an exhibn lled “Carry the Wa” at Syrace Universy that ntu the ias of celebratn and heartbreak of “Atlannahland.

SHANEQUA GAY’S NEW EXHIB SPIRED BY HER ANCTORS AND SOUTHERN BLACK TRADNS

The ECC hosts a highly visible exhibn wh the Palazzo Bembo, loted on the Grand Canal where Gay’s work will be prented.

SHANEQUA GAY

“I am floored and humbled, and I sway between tears and lghter, ” says Gay of the opportuny to be part of such a prtig timg seems right, as cis wh a wake-up ll to the natn — the world even — to stop dismissg the cy as the poster child for “noplacens” and urban sprawl, and regnize that “Atlanta Influenc Everythg, ” as the cy’s latt tchphrase stat. ”Shanequa Gay is still askg qutns. Shanequa Gay’s work draws upon rual and personal memory, storytellg, fantasy, and the ep well of southern black tradns found her home place of Atlanta.

Gay’s fodr is play, digeno belief systems, and the spir of Ain-Ascendant Womyn and girls fdg Divy Self. Gay engag this practice through stallatns, patgs, performance, photography, vio and monumental sculptural figur.

CREATIVE RINCE: SHANEQUA GAY’S STUNNG COVID-19 STALLATN, PHOTOS

Atlanta-born Shanequa Gay holds an MFA om Geia State Universy and a BA om the Savannah College of Art and Dign. Gay's acplishments clu selectn for OFF THE WALL, a cy-wi Civil Rights and Social Jtice Mural iative led by the Atlanta Super Bowl Host Commtee (2019).