APRIL BEY
Welcome to Atlantica

April 15 – May 16, 2020
Online exclusive exhibition on ARTSY

THE WORK
The series introduces us to the planet Atlantica, Bey’s home planet and also home to visionaries, Womanist Matriarchies, Earth analysis, black thought, and queer adventures in design. Atlantica is a joyous AfroFuturist meme and also a serious paean to women’s resilience in the face of colonialism, specifically black women who are expected to be sovereign and robust while at the same time assumed to be inept and emotionally weak when leadership roles are sought. Made in another universe that parallels, critiques, celebrates and satirizes our own, Atlantica occupies exploited space, offering up a fictitious world where labels are non-existent and we are allowed to float within our self-defined identities.

Afro Futurism, Afro Surrealism and an examination of colonialization and post-colonial ramifications are explored. West African knock-off Chinese wax fabric is hand sewn into works to reference and connect colonial tactics with active neo-colonialism taking place throughout the African diaspora. The work examines the artist’s duality in culture, having grown up in The Bahamas and with American family and how this impacts her observation of Earth within this narrative of Atlantica as a safe space in space.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Atlantica was once a nameless planet and short story told to me by my black father as a way to explain racism—why I looked different than my mother, who was white, and why children at school made fun of my hair. He told me we would always be different because we were aliens sent from another planet to observe and report on Earth. Altantica reflects a space of celebration and Earth is referenced and reported on as an outsider would.

On planet Atlantica, Grace Jones, Nina Simone and James Baldwin wear non-functional space helmets while smoking cigarettes in zero gravity because functional physics can’t impact their flyness. Their banners fly high in every governmental building where meetings are held only to discuss grits of glitter and shea butter application—glitter is our currency.

An extensive solo exhibition of the same title was originally presented at Fullterton College in California, from March 5 – 30, 2020.

REQUEST PRICE LIST | VIEW WORKS ON ARTSY

THE ARTIST
April Bey grew up in the Caribbean (Nassau, Bahamas) and now resides and works in Los Angeles, CA. Bey’s interdisciplinary artworks examine and critique American and Bahamian culture, pop culture feminism, generational theory, social media, AfroFuturism and constructs of race. The artist’s practice and material choices are informed by her travels to Canada, Iceland, London, Bali, Dubai, Morocco, Senegal, Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana, West Africa. Collections housing Bey’s work include The California African American Museum, The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas and The Current, Baha Mar in Nassau, Bahamas. Bey holds a BFA in drawing from Ball State University (2009) and MFA in painting from California State University, Northridge (2014).