The Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists sheds light on the under-recognized contributions of Black trans women visual artists and provides critical support to their continuing work.

Queer|Art is pleased to introduce The Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists. Developed and named in partnership with Mariette Pathy Allen, Aaryn Lang, and Serena Jara, this new annual $10,000 grant, awarded to draw attention to an existing body of work, sheds light on the under-recognized contributions of Black trans women visual artists and provides critical support to their continuing work. Winning artists will receive additional professional development resources and further guidance to bolster their creative development in the field. 

The Illuminations Grant is made possible entirely through support provided by visual artist Mariette Pathy Allen, whose body of photographic work over the last forty years has been squarely focused on expanding cultural consciousness around gender and transformation. The development of this grant was stewarded by consultant and writer Aaryn Lang, working in collaboration with Mariette Pathy Allen, Serena Jara, and Queer|Art.

“The Illuminations Grant not only highlights the lacking representation of Black trans women in the visual arts,” says Lang, “but also seeks to confront the systemic barriers that deny them artistic opportunities and a sustainable craft. By supporting this grant, Mariette Pathy Allen challenges herself and the art industry to see Black trans women as more than mere subjects, while forging a new pathway for visual artists within this community to thrive.”

ABOUT

The Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists, a $10,000 grant, supports visual artists who are self-identified Black trans women and trans femmes. This new grant is made possible entirely through support provided by visual artist Mariette Pathy Allen with key consultancy by Aaryn Lang.

The Illuminations Grant is administered through Queer|Art with a rotating panel of judges, each of whom will conduct a studio visit with the winning artist as part of the award’s focus on supporting creative and professional development. Judges for the 2020 grant cycle include Texas Isaiah, Connie (Girl) Fleming, and Lyle Ashton Harris. Queer|Art staff will also provide the winning artist with consultations and further access to many of the tools they have developed in conjunction with the organization’s cornerstone creative and professional development program, Queer|Art|Mentorship. 

Qualified artists must be self-identified Black trans women and trans femmes working in visual art and based in the United States. Applications were open March 31, 2021—July 12, 2021.

For questions, email Illuminations Grant Manager ray ferreira at rferreira@queer-art.org.

LEE LAA RAY GUILLORY WINS SECOND ANNUAL ILLUMINATIONS GRANT FOR BLACK TRANS WOMEN VISUAL ARTISTS

Queer|Art is pleased to announce the winner of the second annual Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists, Lee Laa Ray Guillory. The New Orleans-based visual artist will receive a $10,000 cash grant, professional development support, and individual studio visits with members of the judges panel to support her practice.

Interdisciplinary artist Lee Laa Guillory deploys ritual based photographic and performance work to reveal the presence of transgenerational trauma among Black femmes in rural Louisiana. In Guillory’s deeply intimate and enigmatic photographic work, meticulously staged embodied practices such as hair maintenance and oral tradition are magnified through enchanting lighting and cool hues. Dense braids often dangle divinely from above, threading together quiet moments of reflection. Other times, coils of hair are clutched in outrage. Documenting Black femmes in meditation, enraged states, and all that lies in between, Guillory’s cathartic photographs illuminate the healing potential within the sacred.

Texas Isaiah, Illuminations Grant Judge and photographer, remarks, “Lee Laa Ray Guillory has shown exceptional insight into the interiority of Black mysticism and alternative photographic practices. Her profound methods will insert her into a contemporary visual history filled with heartfelt and inventive image-makers who are changing how we witness ourselves and each other.”

Lee Laa Guillory is a New Orleans based interdisciplinary artist and independent curator whose work is grounded in her devotion to Black mysticism and photographic investigation of intersectional identity. Guillory inherited rituals of hair maintenance, oral mythologies, and alternative photographic practices, serving as the foundational elements of her work. Her multifaceted art making practice is incited by Louisiana's religious history of European, Indigenous, and Afro-diasporic spiritual syncretization. Her interdisciplinary practice follows the tradition of art as ritual, with past works offering divination to the Mississippi River watershed, ancestral veneration via self portraiture, immersive photo-based installations, and spirit led photography.

On receiving the 2021 Illuminations Grant, Lee Laa Ray Guillory writes:

“Winning this grant will afford me the financial aid necessary to continue my photographic research which aims to interrogate both the spiritual intimacies of Black Southern Femme ecosystems and the ancestral veneration practices we often employ as a means of collective survival against white supremacist patriarchal capitalist regimes. This award will directly fund the completion of my forthcoming work, “This is My Boy Which Was Broken for You,” an image and text based book artifact that channels the voices of my late maternal grandmother and the femmes of my matrilineal bloodline. This book pays homage to the fallen matriarchs of the Black Acadiana region by weaving personal diaries, family portraits, childhood illustrations, regional lore, and sacred text to illuminate rural Louisiana’s complex relationship to colorism and the sexual exploitation of black femme bodies. I am beyond humbled by this award and feel honored to be recognized by Queer|Art.” 

2021 ILLUMINATIONS GRANT FINALISTS

In addition to Lee Laa Ray Guillory, four other visual artists were acknowledged as finalists for this year—Golden, Yasha Lelonek, Glori Tuitt, and Jhona Xaviera. Each of these distinguished finalists will receive a $1,250 award to honor their artistic practice.

2021 ILLUMINATIONS GRANT JUDGES

Texas Isaiah (he/they) is a first-generation visual narrator born in Brooklyn, NY, and currently residing in Los Angeles, CA. In 2020, Texas Isaiah became one of the first Trans photographers to photograph a Vogue edition cover (Janet Mock, Patrisse Cullors, Jesse Williams, and Janaya Future Khan) and a TIME cover (Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union-Wade). He is one of the 2018 grant recipients of Art Matters and the 2019 recipient of the Getty Images: Where We Stand Creative Bursary grant. He is currently a 2020-21 artist in residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Selected exhibitions include Fotografiska (NYC), Aperture Foundation Gallery (NYC), Charlie James Gallery (LA), Studio Museum in Harlem (NYC), Residency (LA), Hammer Museum (LA), and The Kitchen (NYC). Selected publications and clients include Abercrombie and Fitch, Calvin Klein, British Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, TIME, The New York Times, LA Times, Artforum, VSCO, and Cultured Magazine.

Connie (Girl) Fleming is a performer, model, stylist, fashion illustrator, and undeniable New York City legend. As a renowned stage performer, she has graced iconic nightlife venues like the Palladium, the Tunnel, and the Pyramid; performed in various videos for George Michael, Chic, and Jody Watley; and appeared in the opening montages for Saturday Night Live and MTV News. Connie’s status as a fashion icon and cultural muse has led her to model for Thierry Mugler, Vivienne Westwood, and Andre Walker across New York and Paris. A charter member of the House of Field and a Mistress of Ceremonies at Jackie 60, Connie began her reign as one of New York’s most sought-after gate-keepers when she worked the door at Eric Conrad’s Poop at the Supper Club. Her inimitable fashion drawings have been used to illustrate costumes for Beyoncé, Anastasia, Swarovski, and “The Devil Wears Prada,” among others. Today, Connie splits her time between various artistic endeavors, and works as a runway coach, producer, and casting director for several fashion brands in New York and abroad.

Lyle Ashton Harris (born 1965, Bronx, New York) has cultivated a diverse artistic practice ranging from photography and collage to installation and performance art. His work explores intersections between the personal and the political, examining the impact of ethnicity, gender, and desire on the contemporary social and cultural dynamic. His work is included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and has been exhibited internationally as well as in the Venice Biennale, the Bienal de São Paulo, and most recently at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, presented on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Cinéma du Réel. He was the 2014 recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize from the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship in 2016. Harris’s multimedia installation Once (Now) Again, was included in the 78th Whitney Biennial, his three-channel video work Ektachrome Archives (New York Mix), 2017, was acquired by the Whitney Museum, and an artist monograph titled Today I Shall Judge Nothing That Occurs was published by Aperture in 2017. The artist currently lives and works in New York City and is a Professor of Art and Art Education at New York University.

APPLY

APPLICATIONS OPEN - MARCH 31, 2022
COMPLETE APPLICATION - JULY 12, 2022

What information does the application require?

• Contact info, narrative bio, and headshot

• One sentence description of your artistic practice

• One short essay question on Artistic Practice

• 2 references that can speak to your practice

• CV

• Work samples (12 samples maximum, details below)

Work Sample Specifications:

Choose from any of the following formats to upload work samples that best represent your practice.

Allowed Media Types:

- Images (up to 10MB each)
- Video (up to 500MB each)
- PDFs (up to 20MB each)
- External media from YouTube, Vimeo and SoundCloud

Images do not have to be a particular size, as SlideRoom's servers will process them to fit their system. Their processors will resize anything larger than 1280 x 1280 x 72 ppi to fit within those limitations.

Image file formats accepted: .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .tif, .tiff, .bmp, .tga
Video file formats accepted: .m4v, .mov, .mp4, .wmv, .flv, .asf, .mpeg, .mpg, .mkv

Please include title, medium, year, and brief description of each work sample.

Note: Application fees for all applicants have been waived.

Questions? Please carefully review our Frequently Asked Questions before contacting us with questions about the grant or application process. Thank you!

MEET THE TEAM

Mariette Pathy Allen is a photographer of transgender, genderfluid, and intersex communities, as well as other continuous series such as Birth and Families, Flowers and Fantasy, and Scapes. Allen’s earliest portfolios contain images taken in New Jersey and Philadelphia, People with art, and dance. In 1978, on the last day of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Allen met Vicky West, a trans woman she befriended and through whom she was first invited to Fantasia Fair, a transgender conference where she would serve as official photographer. She continues to pursue the work of photographing, interviewing, and advocating on behalf of gender nonconforming people.

Allen is the author of four books that have brought visibility to transgender communities across the world including Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them (1989), The Gender Frontier (2004), TransCuba (2014), and Transcendents: Spirit Mediums in Burma and Thailand (2017). Allen’s work is included in numerous collections, both public and private, and has been exhibited internationally. Her work is being archived by Duke University's Rare Book and Manuscripts Library and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's Studies. Allen is based in New York City and is represented by ClampArt. You can find her online at www.mariettepathyallen.com.

ray ferreira (Illuminations Grant Manager) is an artist and educator based on the Lenape lands, today called New York. She has taught at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem and currently the Brooklyn Museum -as the Guided Gallery Visit Coordinator- where she oversees educator-led experiences for K-12 students, their teachers, and their chaperones. She is also a Curriculum Consultant for the Octavia Project, an interdisciplinary program that uses speculative fiction as a lens through which to envision new futures and greater possibilities for our world.

ferreira has exhibited and performed in various spaces including the Brooklyn Museum, the Queens Museum, el Centro León, Poets House, and Performance Space New York. In addition to individual projects, she has been increasingly collaborating with other artists including the collective Vers. She holds a BA in Studio Art from SUNY Geneseo and an MFA in Studio Art from Hunter College.

GALLERY

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Image above: Keijaun Thomas, I Looked Up at the Sky and I, Imagined All of the Stars Were My Sisters, photo by Charles Rice, 2020.