Ayanah Moor; I Wish I Could Be You More Often

Ayanah Moor (b 1973, Norfolk, VA) is an artist living and working in Chicago. Through her paintings, prints, drawings and performance, Moor operates within a visual field where notions of blackness and gender identity take shape. She utilizes existing material and cultural artifacts to generate alternative histories, often repositioning the subject as a corrective gesture or to create counter narratives. Vintage advertisements, athletic competition, reimagined slogans, and healing practices have fueled recent projects. Her work engages subversive and demonstrative displays of blackness that locate love, fear, myth and desire.

Moor received a bachelor of fine arts from Virginia Commonwealth University and master of fine arts from Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Her exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the DePaul Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Adobe Books, San Francisco; the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Miller Institute for Contemporary Art, the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives—USC Libraries; Subliminal Projects, Los Angeles; Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Auckland; and Proyecto ‘ace, Buenos Aires