Photo: Tanekeya Word, At Home in her Art Studio,
photographed by Erik Ljung, 2018.
Tanekeya Word creates multimedia visual art on paper: drawings, paintings, narrative forms, and fine art prints that centers the everyday fantastical lives of Black women and girls. Presented in quotidian object scale, no larger than the human body, her works are serialized with focus on Black interiority, material culture, nature, and subaltern mappings in harmony with the body.
Word is the founder of Black Women of Print, a homeplace for Black women printmakers. She holds a B.A. in English/Afro American Studies from Howard University, a M.A. Arts Management from American University.
Currently a dissertator of Urban Education at the University Wisconsin-Milwaukee, with a specialization in Art Education, Word’s forthcoming dissertation (2023) is entitled: Black Womanhood + Black Aesthetics in Art Education.
Tanekeya Word has participated in national exhibitions and her work is held in private and public collections: The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, District of Columbia; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton; Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee; St. Lawrence University, Canton.
Forthcoming:
Tanekeya Word is spending much of 2023 drawing, painting, expanding into lithography and getting familiar with Sula, her Riso machine, to further a publishing practice.
In Spring 2023, Tanekeya will curate, design and publish the sophomore bi-annual portfolio for Black Women of Print.
After dedicating herself to a 3 year project, Tanekeya is also excited to release her first published artist book, portfolio and mixed media prints focused on the comb, sisterhood and self-care (Autumn 2023).