Artist Talk: Ja'Tovia Gary

Location

Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall, Humanities Center, Room 200

Free

Ja’Tovia Gary is an artist and filmmaker who was born in Dallas, Texas. Her work seeks to “liberate the distorted histories through which Black life is often viewed while fleshing out a nuanced and multivalent Black interiority.” Gary studied documentary film production and Africana Studies at Brooklyn College before receiving her MFA in Social Documentary Filmmaking at the School of the Visual Arts in New York. The Humanities Center Gallery is currently featuring two of Gary’s recent works: An Ecstatic Experience (2015) and Giverny I (Négresse Impériale) (2017). The latter film won several awards when it first screened at the 2018 New Orleans Festival and An Ecstatic Experience is now part of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s permanent collection. Gary is also the recipient of multiple creative awards and fellowships including, most recently, from the Terra Foundation of American Art, The Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, and The Headland’s Artist Residency in Sausalito, Calif.