Home Artist Programs Supported Artists André Leon Gray

André Leon Gray

Raleigh, North Carolina

Net Worth is a installation on a soil-covered surface, showcasing assemblages of various objects, including books, a basketball hoop, a framed picture, a model skeleton, and scattered electronic components.

Net Worth

2024

Don’t hate the player, hate the Game is a sculpture centered on a tall rectangular column with a model ship at the top. Two wooden oars extend from the sides, and a black banner encircles the column. A pawn chess piece stands on a small box protruding from the lower center, and a book leans at the foot of the column.

Don’t hate the player, hate the Game

2024

Speak, so you may speak again is a mixed-media wall assemblage featuring the word "VOICE" in red, speakers, a microphone, a framed sketch, and various audio equipment mounted on a black backdrop. The lower section has a rectangular field of cotton texture, overlaid with an x of stars and an afro pick at the center.

Speak, so you may speak again

2023

In the absence of light, flip the script in your mind is a sculptural installation. In the foreground are two metal figures holding candles in one hand and holding a chain between them, in front of a small globe. They stand on a platform reading “NOSCE TE IPSUM” stacked on top of books labeled World Book and Year Book. Behind this assemblage is a sepia toned photo of a Black man surrounded by people in Klan robes with text overlaid “IF THERE IS NO RESISTANCE, IT WILL CRAWL INTO THE SOUL OF ANYONE WHO ENGAGES IT” and social media icons overlaid at the bottom.

In the absence of light, flip the script in your mind

2021

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About André Leon Gray

André Leon Gray gazes thoughtfully, resting a finger on his chin in this black and white photo. He is a Black man with medium dark skin, and a mustache, and wears a dark hair wrap and large rings on his fingers.
Photo by Renee Cox

André Leon Gray was born in 1969 in Raleigh, NC, where he lives and works as a self-trained interdisciplinary artist. Within his installations, paintings, drawings, collages, and sculptures, he explores and investigates social power structures, culture, identity, and history. His artistic practice primarily uses objects charged with sociopolitical meaning to forge links between the past and the present. Gray’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including Dust My Broom: Southern Vernacular from the Permanent Collection, California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2019-20); To the Hoop: Basketball in Contemporary Art, Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2020); and post hip hop? or return of the boom bap!, Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Gallery, New York (2023) and Project Row Houses, Houston (2024). He has attended several residencies including the Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency (2024), McColl Center Artist Residency (2022), and the Fountainhead Residency (2011). Gray is also the recipient of the 2023 21c Research Triangle Artadia Award. His artwork is in the permanent collections of the California African American Museum, the North Carolina Museum of Art, and the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at NC State University.

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Fellowship, 2024

Website / Social Links

“ I am interested in illuminating the complex duality of remembering and forgetting by constantly rousing the past and present, while disseminating alchemical changes to alter the perception of temporal identity beyond the material realm to an enlightened state of being.”