Ayanah Moor facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ayanah Moor
Born	1973 Norfolk, Virginia
Nationality	American
Occupation	Conceptual artist, professor

Ayanah Moor, born in 1973 in Norfolk, Virginia, is an American artist. She creates art using many different methods. These include prints, videos, and live performances. Her art often looks at today's popular culture. She explores ideas about who we are and how we express ourselves. Many of her artworks focus on hip-hop culture, American politics, and how people show their identity.

Ayanah Moor's Education and Teaching

Ayanah Moor studied art at top universities. She earned her first degree in painting and printmaking in 1995. This was from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. Later, in 1998, she received a Master of Fine Arts degree. She specialized in printmaking at Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia.

Today, Moor is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She teaches in the Department of Printmedia. Before this, she taught at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Moor believes it's important for young artists to trust their own ideas. She wants them to feel confident in their work. She encourages them to express themselves without always looking for approval from others.

What Kind of Art Does Ayanah Moor Make?

Ayanah Moor is known as a conceptual artist. This means her art often focuses on ideas rather than just making something beautiful. She often takes existing images or materials and changes them. This helps her to create new meanings.

Moor explains that her art explores our desires, fears, and dreams. She says that popular culture shows us these things. She also feels it's important for people to define themselves. This is especially true for Black people in America. They have often been defined by others. By changing existing things, she wants to offer new ways of looking at history and ideas.

Cool Art Projects by Ayanah Moor

Ayanah Moor has worked on many interesting projects. Here are a few examples:

• Quiet Storm (2017): She showed her art with another artist, Krista Franklin. This exhibition was at the Produce Mode Gallery in Chicago.
• Flow (2015): Moor worked with dancer Jasmine Hearn on this project. It was shown at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Flow was a performance piece. It turned drawings into sounds and sounds into movements. It was a response to an older artwork by Bill T. Jones and Keith Haring.
• Thanks For The Race (2014): This was a performance art piece. It used wood, mats, and rocks. It took place at the ACRE Residency in Wisconsin.
• Queer & Brown in Steeltown (2012-2013): This was a podcast and blog project. She created it with Raquel Rodriguez.
• The Pittsburgh Passion Project (2009): This project focused on the Independent Women's Football League in Pittsburgh.
• Still (2006): This was a series of photographs. It looked at how women are shown in rap music videos.

Awards and Recognition

Ayanah Moor has received several awards for her art.

• In 2015, she got the Jackman Goldwasser Residency. This was from the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago.
• In 2014 and 2011, she received the Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh Award. This award came from The Pittsburgh Foundation.
• In 2011, she also received a fellowship from the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. This was at Carnegie Mellon University.
• Earlier, in 2003, she received a Creative Fellowship Award. This was from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. She also got an Artist Award from The Pittsburgh Foundation.
• In 2002, she was awarded a Berkman Faculty Development Fund Grant. This was from Carnegie Mellon University.

Where You Can Find Her Art (Permanent Collections)

Ayanah Moor's art is part of many important collections. This means her work is owned by museums and other places. People can see it there for a long time. Some of these collections include:

• Soho House Art Collection in London, UK
• Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art in Kennesaw, GA
• The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL
• Erie Art Museum in Erie, PA
• David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, PA
• Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA

Solo Art Shows

Ayanah Moor has had many solo exhibitions. This means her art was the main focus of the show. Here are some of them:

• 2013: Ayanah Moor, Welch Galleries, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA
• 2012: New Drawings, Braddock Carnegie Library, Braddock, PA
• 2011: Shift : Cambio, Poliglota Room, Proyecto ‘ace, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• 2011: Good News, 707 Penn Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
• 2009: Souljah Sotomayor, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI
• 2007: (W)RAPPER, Kipp Gallery, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA
• 2007: Our Radio is Bigger than Yours, Rice Gallery, McDaniel College, Westminster, MD
• 2006: Still, Jewett Art Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
• 2006: Still, John Hope Franklin Center, Duke University, Durham, NC
• 2005: Ayanah Moor, A+D 11th Street Gallery, Columbia College, Chicago, IL
• 2003: A to Z Like Me, Anchor Graphics, Chicago, IL
• 2003: Recent Work, Women's Studio Workshop Gallery, Rosendale, NY