About - Nsenga Knight

“Through the experience of looking at/ participating in my work, I am inviting my audiences to challenge traditional boundaries of race, nationhood, and religion and create wholly new constructions that broaden our collective imaginations.”
– Nsenga Knight

a brown skinned Black mulsim woman artist wears a black hijab, brown duster sweater, light blue jeansm and brown boots and sits at a drawing table surrounded by art in her artist studio at Queens Museum. Two photo lights are on either side of her — Nsenga Knight in her Queens Museum studio where she is 2022-2024 In Situ Fellow and Artist in Residence

Artist Statement:

I am an interdisciplinary conceptual artist creating work that forges deep
connections between audiences and their spiritual nature, collective
history, and community. Through paintings, prints, video, installations and social practice, I explore themes of decolonization, migration, and communal narratives, engaging audiences in critical conversations about
race, nationhood, and religion.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York to Afro-Caribbean immigrant
parents who embraced Islam as young adults, my work is deeply informed by my first-generation Black American Muslim experience. I draw from archival research, memoirs, Islamic cosmology, and my own documentary practice to challenge and expand our understanding of identity, place, and belonging. My recent solo exhibition, Close to Home, represents the culmination of two years of artistic exploration, research, and community engagement during my In-Situ artist fellowship at the Queens Museum.

With institutional and community support, I produced an ambitious
exhibition featuring domestic furnishings, artifacts, paintings, collages,
prints, videos, wallpaper, and a multi-iterative social practice work which I presented within an immersive installation format that explored home as a cultural and spiritual anchor in a chaotic world.

Through experiencing and participating in my work, I invite audiences to
challenge traditional boundaries, broaden our collective imaginations, and connect with deepened compassion.

Nsenga Knight 2022, X Speaks: An Appeal to African Heads of State, Performance Art and Social Practice, Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo, Egypt

Bio:

Nsenga Knight is a visionary artist whose interdisciplinary and conceptual practice forges deep connections between audiences and their spiritual nature, collective history, and community. Working at the intersection of Islamic art, Western abstraction, and Black aesthetics, Knight draws from archival research, memoir, ritual, and documentary photography to create works that challenge and expand our understanding of identity, place, and belonging.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, to Afro-Caribbean and South American parents who embraced Islam as young adults, Knight’s work is deeply informed by her first-generation Black American Muslim experience. Through paintings, prints, video, and social practice, she explores themes of decolonization, migration, and communal narratives, engaging audiences in critical conversations about race, nationhood, and faith in the 21st century. Her work has been exhibited at major institutions, including the New Museum, PS1 MoMA, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and the Queens Museum, where she presented her debut solo New York museum exhibition, Close to Home.

She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant, and has participated in residencies at BRIC, the Drawing Center, and Elsewhere Museum, among others. As Knight herself states, “Through the experience of looking at and participating in my work, I am inviting my audiences to challenge traditional boundaries of race, nationhood, and religion and create wholly new constructions that broaden our collective imaginations.