Shaunté Gates: recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennal Grant

Please join Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery in congratulating artist Shaunté Gates, awarded by The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation with the Biennial Competition grant.

Established in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of the founder of Tiffany & Company, the Foundation remains one of the largest single sources of monetary grants to artists working in America today. Since 1980, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation’s biennial competition has awarded artists working in painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, video, and craft media with grants to produce new work and push the boundaries of their creativity. Since 1980, more than $10,000,000 in awards has been distributed to more than 500 artists nationwide.

Shaunté Gates’ mixed media collage have moved from canvas to wood in response to the needs of the layering of fabrics, canvas, paper, coins, and photographs. Gates’s use of found materials evokes the cultural relevance of their site of origin and the popular culture referenced within these works. The works may be most concisely described as psychogeography. His work explores themes of duality, religion, introspection, and escapism.

Shaunté Gates (b. 1979) is based in Washington D.C., where he attended the University of District of Columbia. He has participated at Smithsonian Institution’s “Men of Change” four-year (2019-2022) traveling exhibition. The exhibition spans ten museums including California African American Museum, Cincinnati Underground Railroad Museum, and Washington State History Museum. Gates has works in reputed private collections, and an acquisition by the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Collection. Gates presented his first solo exhibition in Europe at Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery Luxembourg in November 2022.

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