Bey’s interdisciplinary artworks are often crafted around the perspective of the fictional planet Atlantica, an Afrofuturist alien world which redefines Blackness outside the context of white supremacy and colonial suffering, combining American and Bahamian visual culture and contemporary pop culture into potent and imaginative social critique.
April Bey (b.1987) grew up in The Bahamas (New Providence) and lives and works in Los Angeles as a visual artist and art educator, currently a tenured professor at Glendale College. In 2022, Bey had her inaugural solo exhibition with Simon Lee Gallery, preceeded by solo presentations in TERN Gallery, Gavlak Gallery and California African American Museum.
Bey’s interdisciplinary artworks are often crafted around the perspective of the fictional planet Atlantica, an Afrofuturist alien world which redefines Blackness outside the context of white supremacy and colonial suffering, combining American and Bahamian visual culture and contemporary pop culture into potent and imaginative social critique. The artist’s incorporation of mass-produced objects and reproductive media including printmaking and video underscores the means by which images come to define reality through their incessant replication in a world we experience increasingly through virtual means. Having developed Atlantica over the course of years as a critical endeavour into Afrofuturist texts and speculative fiction, Bey’s new body of work continues to broaden her unique vision for an ecosystem of mutual aid and acts of reparation. All of Bey’s works are extremely labour intensive, with demonstrative care even in the materials used; many incorporate fabrics and elements sourced from Black femme-owned businesses.
Selected Works
Installation Views
