Rituals with Shanequa Gay by Atiba

Rituals Interview by Atiba T. Edwards. Images courtesy of Shanequa Gay

Atiba: You often feature women who wear masks (and at times wearing white), what is the meaning behind that symbol?

Shanequa: White is holiness, purity, cleansing, safety, symmetry and balance. It is honor and it is spirit. I want these imagined divine figures to be seen as holy and worthy of the positions they hold as god-like intercessors and protectors.

AE: What does the symbol of the masks mean and why the choice for them to be animals?

SG: Masks have several meanings within my work. A mask can reveal or it can hide. Secrecy is a form of currency in the Black community and we pride ourselves on coding and the unknown. Masking became a form of survival when we consider the vicissitudes that met us while crossing the Atlantic and shoring in the Americas.

We (African - Ascendant People) have learned to mask who we really are, to perform Blackness, Americanness, Africanness.

We always seem to be in limbo of who we are, a kind of glamouring for the stage. Masks also have a way of showing who we really are. To cover up can also mean to unearth.

These beings in my work oscillate between concealing and revealing. The Black woman’s body has always been violated or impeded upon and made accessible to (a public) ‘gaze.’ Within my work, the masks have no eyes. You have no real access to the ‘Devouts.’ If they face you, nothingness and everything is staring back at you.

These deities are kind of symbols in the ritualistic state of the mask.

They are caught up in the spirit of performance, manifesting, knowing, initiation and the divine permanently.

AE: It seems that the bull and deer the are most featured masks. Why is that?

SG: Within many indigenous tribal ceremonies, often times an animal mask is worn to take on the spirit of the animal, to become transformative, to embrace the power of that being, to hybridize and shape-shift. The bull represents strength, dominance, provision, confidence, gender fluidity and unpredictability. The deer buck represents intuition, agility, a messenger and harmony. It houses joy and intelligence. The buck is also known to leave the mother and doe after a few months as it takes no part in rearing. This is also an unfortunate consequence that still plagues the black community, in which black women are left to rear, protect, to nurture, discipline and provide. These divine figures take on the natural and spiritual roles of these animals.

AE: What inspired your passion for art?

SG: I have always been a creative person and my parents helped to cultivate my artistry early on. I was given private art lessons, sang in chorus/choir, played violin, wrote plays, poetry and songs in my past time and drew on my bedroom walls when I was sent to my room for punishment. Creativity is my portal. It has always been my first language of communication and the translation of my ideas and feelings when I did not have the words, per se, to share or explain myself.

AE: Art is...

SG: Art is healing, sacred, ritual. Art is the human experience.