artist statement

I am an interdisciplinary self-trained artist seeking to engage in critical dialogue with the public at large. Meditating between culture, identity and history while challenging power structures and disrupting social hierarchies, my work is primarily installation based and incorporates drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, audio and video.

This multi-media method of working involves rigorous research and development, often requiring me to consult directly with research institutions, scholars, architects, visual artists, filmmakers and musicians. Other pre-production techniques involve activating what may seem random objects by juxtaposing them with one another. It is an improvisational strategy with sonic origins in jazz or be-bop, but also in freestyle rapping. This freestyle of object arrangement produces new spaces and platforms for public interpretation.

I am interested in illuminating the complex duality of remembering and forgetting by constantly rousing the past and present, while disseminating alchemical changes to alter the perception of temporal identity beyond the material realm to an enlightened state of being.

biography

André Leon Gray was born in 1969 in Raleigh, North Carolina where he lives and works as a self-trained interdisciplinary artist. Within his installations, tar paintings, drawings, collages, and assemblages, he explores and investigates power structures, social hierarchies, culture, identity, and history. His artistic practice primarily uses discarded and reclaimed objects charged with sociopolitical meaning to forge links between the past and the present.

Gray’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including African Continuum: International Year for People of African Descent, United Nations Headquarters, New York (2011); Area 919: Artists in the Triangle, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham (2015); Dust My Broom: Southern Vernacular from the Permanent Collection, California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2019-20); To the Hoop: Basketball in Contemporary Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2020); AIM BIENNIAL, Miami (2023); and post hip hop? or return of the boom bap!, Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Gallery, New York (2023) and Project Row Houses, Houston (2024).

He has attended several residencies including the Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency (2024); McColl Center Artist Residency (2022); and the Fountainhead Residency (2011). He is a 2023 21c Research Triangle Artadia Awardee, presented by 21c Museum Hotels in partnership with Artadia, a non-profit grantmaker.

Gray’s work is in the permanent collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art, the California African American Museum, and the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at NC State University.

His work is featured in an art gallery scene for the National Geographic TV limited series Genius: MLK/X, Season 4 Episode 3.

André Leon Gray is currently self-represented. To inquire about the availability and/or pricing of larger artworks, exhibition opportunities, or for more information, please contact the artist.