Ujima Arts Fellow Shantel Miller debuts first solo exhibition in Boston

On February 16, 2024, Shantel Miller, Ujima's 2022-24 Arts and Cultural Organizing Fellow, debuts her first solo exhibition in Boston. Titled "I’ve Been Trying to Reach You," the showcase of Miller's recent works will be hosted at the Anderson Yezerski Gallery until March 23, 2024. There will be an Artist Reception at Anderson Yezerski Gallery on Friday, March 1, 2024 from 5-8pm.

According to the gallery's press release, the exhibition "attempts to resolve underlying interpersonal issues by engaging in a transformative space that reveals human longings. Working in this way, the body is situated in contemplative moments of solitude and community offering a conversation about presentations of the public and private self. Through portraiture and still-life painting, each piece offers insight into the inner lives of the matriarchs in the artist’s family and the women in her church."

Shantel Miller is a visual artist of Jamaican descent whose interdisciplinary practice incorporates drawing, painting, printmaking, and photography to communicate complexities within spirituality and existentialism in representations of Blackness.

In 2021, Shantel graduated from Boston University with an MFA in Painting and received the Dedalus Foundation Fellowship in Sculpture and Painting, the Ester B. Khan Award, and the Elizabeth Greenshields Award. Her artwork has been acquired by private collections around the world and she has participated in numerous group shows, residencies, and art fairs in North America including The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, The Varley Art Gallery of Markham, the Nia Center for the Arts Artist-in-Residence Program, the Converging Liberations Residency at Mass MoCA, NADA Miami and Future Fair in NYC.

Learn more about the exhibition on the gallery's website.