Bio
Short: Miatta Kawinzi (she/her/they/them) is a Kenyan-Liberian-American multi-disciplinary artist, writer, and educator raised in Nashville, TN and Louisville, KY and based in Brooklyn, NY since 2010. Her work explores hybridity within the African Diaspora and the re-imagining of the self, identity, place, and culture through abstraction and poetics. She received an MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College and a BA in Interdisciplinary Art & Cultural Theory from Hampshire College. Her work has been presented at the Africa Center, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, CUE Art Foundation, the Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA PopRally, Red Bull Arts Detroit, BRIC, Maysles Cinema, and the Museum of the Moving Image, among other spaces. She has been awarded artist residencies in spaces including Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY), MacDowell (Peterborough, NH), POV Spark in partnership with the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture (NYC, DC, and Venice, Italy), Red Bull Arts Detroit (Detroit, MI), the Cité internationale des arts (Paris, France, with Lower Manhattan Cultural Council), Beta-Local (San Juan, Puerto Rico), the Bemis Center (Omaha, NE), and the Bag Factory (Johannesburg, South Africa). Additional awards include the 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, the 2021 New York Artadia Award, the 2019 Bemis Center Alumni Award, and the 2018 Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant administered by Queer|Art. She has taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Cornell University, Hampshire College, and the University of Richmond. She has also worked as a museum, youth, and community arts educator throughout NYC.
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Long: Miatta Kawinzi (she/her/they/them) is a Kenyan-Liberian-American multi-disciplinary artist, writer, and educator raised in Nashville, TN and Louisville, KY and based in Brooklyn, NY since 2010. Her work explores hybridity within the African Diaspora and the re-imagining of the self, identity, place, and culture through abstraction and poetics. She received an MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College and a BA in Interdisciplinary Art & Cultural Theory from Hampshire College.
She has exhibited and/or performed her work in the US, Mexico, South Africa, France, Switzerland, Trinidad & Tobago, and Liberia, where her work is included in the Art-in-Embassies public collection in Monrovia. Her work has been presented at the Africa Center, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor Film Festival, the New Orleans Film Festival, CUE Art Foundation, the Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA PopRally, Red Bull Arts Detroit, BRIC, Maysles Cinema, and the Museum of the Moving Image, among other spaces.
She has been awarded artist residencies in spaces including Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY), MacDowell (Peterborough, NH), the Integrated Digital Media Program at NYU Tandon School of Engineering (Brooklyn, NY), POV Spark in partnership with the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture (NYC, DC, and Venice, Italy), Red Bull Arts Detroit (Detroit, MI), Alfred University's Institute for Electronic Arts (Alfred, NY), the Cité internationale des arts (Paris, France, with Lower Manhattan Cultural Council), the Bag Factory (Johannesburg, South Africa), the Bemis Center (Omaha, NE), Beta-Local (San Juan, Puerto Rico), Greatmore Studios (Cape Town, South Africa), IAAB (Basel, Switzerland), Flux Factory (NYC), and the SOMA Summer program (Mexico City, Mexico).
Additional awards include the 2021-22 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, the 2021 New York Artadia Award, the 2019 Bemis Center Alumni Award, the 2018 Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant administered by Queer|Art, a NY Community Trust Foundation Fellowship, the Kossak Travel Grant, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.
Her work has appeared in publications including the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Studio Magazine, Dancing While Black Journal, Femmescapes Magazine, and Apogee Journal.
Exploring the intersections of social engagement and creative practice, Kawinzi has taught art at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Cornell University, Hampshire College, and the University of Richmond, and worked as a museum, youth, and community arts educator throughout NYC.
Photo: Colin Conces. Please include credit with any use.