Shanequa Gay | McColl Center

Contents:

• SHANEQUA GAY
• HOMETOWN PRI AND SORROW OVERLAP SHANEQUA GAY’S ARTWORK
• CLOSE LOOKS: "HOLDG SPACE FOR NOBILY: A MEMORIAL FOR BREONNA TAYLOR" BY SHANEQUA GAY
• SHANEQUA GAY’S NEW EXHIB SPIRED BY HER ANCTORS AND SOUTHERN BLACK TRADNS
• SHANEQUA GAY: STANDG WH ZEBRAS
• SHANEQUA GAY NAMED ARTIST--RINCE AT OGLETHORPE UNIVERSY
• ART + ARTISTS
• SHANEQUA GAY: THOUGHT AND MEMORY
• OGLETHORPE MM BUTS NEW WORK OM ACCLAIMED ARTIST SHANEQUA GAY
• SHANEQUA GAY PROUD, THRILLED BY VATN TO EXHIB AT PRTIG VENICE BIENNALE

SHANEQUA GAY

Shanequa Gay, O to Kathryn Johnston, Performance, 933 Neal Street, 2016. ​Shanequa Gay.

wh Karen Comer LoweShanequa Gay, 2019, Artist Stud.

Photo Courty of Harold DanielsShanequa Gay is a multidisciplary artist workg photography, patg and stallatn. Shanequa Gay recently signed the ver of SCAD’s annual amic talog. Shanequa Gay, SummongKaren Comer Lowe: How did you get started as an artist?

HOMETOWN PRI AND SORROW OVERLAP SHANEQUA GAY’S ARTWORK

Shanequa Gay: Around 2005/2006, a iend challenged me to stop beg a craft artist. Shanequa Gay, the unnameable, unspeakable dive ascensn 2019, stallatn: Zuckerman Mm of Art, Kennaw, GeiaKCL: When did you beg creatg the art we know you for now? Shanequa Gay, It's happeng Aga, KCL: You have been creatg ephemeral wall patgs as part of your practice.

Shanequa Gay, I Come As Us, 2018, Acrylic / Four Drs and Paper Sculpture, 10 x 54 feet stallatn: Sumter County Art GalleryKCL: Do you have any tablished relatnships wh galleri?

CLOSE LOOKS: "HOLDG SPACE FOR NOBILY: A MEMORIAL FOR BREONNA TAYLOR" BY SHANEQUA GAY

Shanequa Gay, Ascendg Devouts, 2019, tton pattern sign, marcrame hair weave, rdboard mask, 10 feet height stallatn The Temporary, Atlanta, GeiaKCL: Do you have your work mm llectns? Shanequa Gay, i-she-atn, 2019, Installatn Chasta Arts Center KCL: What one piece of advice would you give to anyone who is nsirg beg a visual artist? Shanequa Gay, Heaven's GateKCL: You recently had your work published Glamour magaze as the backdrop to the portra of Mayor Bottoms; do this exposure affect your practice differently than a gallery or mm show?

Shanequa Gay, an Atlanta native, received her BA Patg om The Savannah College of Art and Dignand an MFA at Geia State Universy. Gay’s work evaluat place, tradn, storytellg, and subject matter to velop imagative dialogu and alternative strategi for self-imagg. Atlanta-born Shanequa Gay (b.

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). Gay has exhibed her work the Uned Stat, Japan, and South Ai and will participate the European Cultural Centre’s exhibn wh the ntext of the 59th Venice Biennale 2022, Gay is a visg Profsor at Atlanta’s Spelman College.

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

Atlanta artist Shanequa Gay, 44, serv a look no matter what the ocsn. 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.

SHANEQUA GAY: STANDG WH ZEBRAS

“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 NAMED ARTIST--RINCE AT OGLETHORPE UNIVERSY

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.

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

“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. 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.

ART + ARTISTS

” 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.

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

BIOGRAPHYArtist Shanequa Gay works patg, illtratn, vio, performance, and monumental sculpture.

OGLETHORPE MM BUTS NEW WORK OM ACCLAIMED ARTIST SHANEQUA GAY

Aud Dcriptn of holdg space for nobily: a memorial for Breonna Taylor by Shanequa Gay. Gay’s recent exhibns clu the European Cultural Centre Personal Stctur-REFLECTION, 59th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, (2022); Atlanta Biennial, Atlanta Contemporary (2021); Le Mon Bossale, Montreal, Canada, (2021); Adorned, McColl Center for Arts and Innovatn, Charlotte (2020); and Holdg Space for Nobily: A Memorial for Breonna Taylor, Ackland Mm, Chapel Hill North Carola (2020) exhibs her works and procur rinci wh the Uned Stat, Europe, Japan, and South Ai.

SHANEQUA GAY PROUD, THRILLED BY VATN TO EXHIB AT PRTIG VENICE BIENNALE

Currently, Gay is a visg Profsor at Spelman College, the Visual Artist--Rince at Oglethorpe Universy, 2022-23 and is one of five Geia Women to Watch selected by the Geia Commtee of the Natnal Mm of Women the Arts (2023). Inspired by her anctors and Southern Black tradns, Atlanta artist Shanequa Gay has created 15 new piec of artwork lled “If I Were Not Here, I Would Have to Be Invented. My work is steeped those thgs, ” said Gay.

Gay scribed llage as a new, but not unfaiar, medium for her work, which is “steeped play. ” The imag the “If I Were Not Here” seri began to evolve when Gay was tapped for a rincy at Stove Works Chattanooga, Tennsee, and was limed to brgg a sparse set of media and tools.

“I took paper, I took graphe, waterlor, and some llage papers, and I began to play, ” said Gay. The imag prise a seri of nstcted, stylized photo portras of young women and girls whom Gay photographed, later addg layers of paper and pat to the photos.