Shaunté Gates

Washington, D.C.-based artist Shaunté Gates’ solo exhibition features a survey of mixed-media paintings and densely layered works that combine photography, painting, collage, and found materials, resulting in surreal, dreamlike compositions that merge portraiture, landscape, and architecture.

Trained in traditional painting and portraiture, Gates’ paintings evolved into a mixed and multimedia expression in 2004 when he began working in television as a motion graphics artist and video editor. Working with images and video footage of music artists and television personalities to create show openings and promotional content subtly and organically influenced his paintings, integrating elements of motion and media into his evolving artistic practice.

“The relationship was reciprocal; the painter spirit was feeding the digital work and in turn my paintings,” Gates said. “Aesthetically and thematically, I embraced the contradiction, as the paintings began to explore themes of introspection and the influence of mass media on society. I started to see the works as theatrical. As I did for television, I began photographing and casting images of family and friends as protagonists for my paintings. I take photos and find photos for other cast members and architecture, as well as capturing stills from cinema and video games to collage into these densely layered stage-like settings.”

Extracting from multiple time-based media that include current events, history, and cinema, perhaps paradoxically, somehow untethered from notions of linear time and space; psychogeographical labyrinths or worlds are constructed to be deconstructed into what Gates describes as, “moments that feel to be on the brink of an unconscious truth.”

Biography

Shaunté Gates is based in Washington, D.C., where he was born and raised. Gates is trained in oil painting, and prior to his recent works, he produced representational portraits. Gates’ past experience as a tattoo artist and television editor with BET Networks greatly informs his practice. He is a participating artist in Smithsonian Institution’s Men of Change four-year (2019-2022) traveling exhibition, which spans 10 museums, including California African American Museum, Cincinnati Underground Railroad Museum, and Washington State History Museum. Gates has work in esteemed private collections, as well as an acquisition by the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Collection. He has many public art commissions from schools throughout D.C., including Transcending, a painting commemorating the 140th anniversary of Howard University School of Law.

Header Image
The Four Huntresses II, 2023
Acrylic, photo, pulled paper, colored pencil, charcoal and ink collage on wood panel
24 × 48 × 3 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York