Shanequa Gay
November 21, 2020: Shanequa Gay’s Artist Statement begins as follows: “My work evaluates place, tradition, storytelling, and subject matter to develop imaginative dialogues and alternative strategies for self-imaging. Through installations, paintings, performance, video, and monumental sculptural figures, I am fabricating environments of ritual and memorial, depicting amalgamated images of familiar iconography, new gods, and mythical figures whose lives have been impacted by systemic inequalities.”
Atlanta native Shanequa Gay began her artistic journey at age three when she applied a multi-media work including crayons onto the wall at home. She took her first commissions in grade school helping her classmates with their poster board book reports. Gay’s first murals were done during her high school years. Even then, Shanequa was experimenting with different media including decorating her friends clothing. Gay received an AA degree in Graphic Design and Fashion Marketing from the Art Institute of Atlanta in 1999.
For the next few years Shanequa worked as a graphic designer and in the field of education. Although, these endeavors payed the bills, they didn’t satisfy her need for creativity and self-expression. Throughout these years, Shanequa continued to do her artwork on the side. That began to change in 2006 when a friend encouraged Gay to make the leap from being an art hobbyist to becoming a full-time fine artist. In 2008 her brother died in an automobile accident sending her into a difficult two-year long period. Normally her art lifted Shanequa out of her difficult situations. But this time she wasn’t able to motivate herself to create, and not being able to create was suffocating her. Shanequa knew that through the structure of regular assignments she could force herself back onto the creative path. And that’s exactly what happened when she enrolled at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) where she graduated at the top of her class. Gay continued her education receiving an MFA from Georgia State University.
She draws from the media, poetry, folklore, African and Greek mythologies using multi-media artwork as a platform to advocate for issues she is passionate about; issues such as gangs, incarceration, police brutality, and feelings of self-hatred experienced by some members of the black community. One of the artist’s many projects is the Fair Game project which uses mythology as a tool to address the pervasive violence in our country specifically violence directed towards black men. The protagonists of the Fair Game project are mythological deer/man hybrids with human bodies and deer’s heads. These hybrids initially appeared to Shanequa in a dream where she saw black men running through the woods transforming between deer and human form while being chased by black police officers. The central premise of the Fair Game project is black men being hunted over the centuries whether by overseers or by police officers.
The artist’s works have been purchased by high-profile collectors such as actor Samuel L. Jackson and singer / song writer Leon Russell. Gay was chosen by the Congressional Club to be the illustrator for the First Lady’s Luncheon where Michelle Obama received a piece of Shanequa’s artwork. She was selected to be a featured artist for the “Forward Warrior” mural painting project. Shanequa was also a featured artist for the “Off The Wall” mural project sponsored by the Super Bowl LIII Host Committee and WonderRoot. Shanequa Gay’s honors go on and on, check her website for the full list.
Link to Shaniqua Gay’s website: http://www.shanequagay.com/
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