Photo Credit – Blair Meadows
Ep.259 April Bey (b. 1987) grew up in the Bahamas (New Providence) and resides and works in Los Angeles as a visual artist and art educator. She is a tenured professor at Glendale College. Bey’s interdisciplinary practice examines American and Bahamian culture, feminism, post-colonialism, speculative futurism, and Blerd culture.
Working across textiles, printmedia, collage, installation, and mixed media, she constructs immersive imagined worlds that function as both refuge and provocation. Central to her work is Atlantica, a speculative universe where glitter operates as currency and narratives of Blackness, queerness, pleasure, and futurity are centered beyond colonial frameworks.
Bey’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at TERN Gallery, Nassau; Vielmetter Los Angeles; The Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; The Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; and The California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, among others, and a two-person exhibition with Kim Dacres at UTA, Atlanta, GA.
Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Getty Museum, The Modern Fort Worth, the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, and other institutions. She has presented solo booths at major art fairs including UNTITLED Miami, The Armory Show (New York), and Frieze Los Angeles, and has completed public art and commission projects with For Freedoms, Fringe Projects, and Glendale Library Arts & Culture.
Her work is held in numerous public collections. She is represented by Vielmetter Los Angeles and Tern Gallery.
Artist https://www.aprilbey.com/
Tern https://www.terngallery.com/artists/april-bey
Vielmetter https://vielmetter.com/artists/april-bey/
Juxtapoz https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/magazine/features/april-bey-a-trip-to-atlantica/
Glendale Community College https://www.glendale.edu/academics/academic-divisions/visual-performing-arts-division/studio-arts/faculty-staff/april-bey
Pomona College https://www.pomona.edu/museum/exhibitions/2025/black-ecologies-contemporary-american-art
MSU Denver https://www.msudenver.edu/cva/exhibitions/archive/dance-of-resistance/
Albany Institute https://www.albanyinstitute.org/exhibition/for-liberation-and-for-life-the-legacy-of-black-dimensions-in-art
Nevada Museum of Art https://www.nevadaart.org/event/opening-talk-artist-april-bey-in-dialogue-with-carmen-beals/
MAAT https://maat.pt/en/event/black-ancient-futures
Whitewall Art https://whitewall.art/art/april-bey-brings-the-story-of-atlantica-to-the-bahamas-and-beyond/
Cultured Mag https://www.culturedmag.com/article/2021/11/23/april-bey-is-an-emissary-for-the-unseen/
Art & Object https://www.artandobject.com/news/thriving-atlantica-april-bey-her-speculative-futurism
Frieze https://www.frieze.com/tags/april-bey
C& https://contemporaryand.com/es/events/april-beyi-believe-in-why-im-here
I’m Not Taking Myself Off the Top Shelf Just Because You Can’t Reach It. 2026
Crushed velvet, leather, glitter, resin, metallic thread on panel, acrylic fur
24″ x 18″ x 2″ [HxWxD] (60.96 x 45.72 x 5.08 cm)
Gallery Inventory#BEY1153
Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles
Photo credit: Jeff McLane
Obviously, the Pineapples are Fertilized with Crab and Rice on Father’s Day Exactly. 2023
Canvas, sherpa and woven jacquard textile hand sewn into resin, glitter on wood panel
36″ x 24″ x 2 ¹⁄₂” [HxWxD] (91.44 x 60.96 x 6.35 cm)
Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles
Photo credit: Jeff McLane
Y’all Hoes Have to Make Up Shit to Pretend That I’m Not That Bitch. 2025
Jacquard textiles, hand-sewn sherpa fabric, adorned jumbo clothespins, ponytail beads
80″ x 60″ [HxW] (203.2 x 152.4 cm)
Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles
Photo credit: Jeff McLane
And…I Would Never Ask You What You Think Because I’ve Seen That You Don’t. 2026
Crushed velvet, leather, glitter, resin, metallic thread on panel, acrylic fur
24″ x 18″ x 2″ [HxWxD] (60.96 x 45.72 x 5.08 cm)
Courtesy of the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles
Photo credit: Jeff McLane
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