about
Ang R. Bennett (b. 1990, Little Rock, AR) is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, certified doula, and queer activist who lives and works in Omaha, NE. Their work examines the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality, exploring identity through personal narrative and inherited history.
Bennett's work has been exhibited locally, regionally, and internationally, including at AfroFest in Taipei, Taiwan. Notably, their work is also featured in the Stonewall National Monument Visitor's Center, the first LGBTQ2IA+ center within the National Park System, where it was displayed during the center's ribbon-cutting and first year of operation. Bennett's work was also selected for the center's inaugural contributor membership card. They were also a contributor to Project 270, a national Get Out the Vote campaign organized by Mana Public Arts.
Bennett is deeply embedded in the Omaha arts community, serving in leadership roles across several organizations, including BFF Omaha, the Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards, Amplify Arts, Opera Omaha, and Voices in Alliance, Omaha's first and only LGBTQ2IA+ theatre company.
artist statement
My work explores the intersections of gender, race, and sexuality through personal narrative and inherited history. My practice spans painting, mixed-media assemblage, and film, challenging the stories we are conditioned to believe about ourselves. My work honors Blackness and my other lived identities as a queer, masculine-of-center, agender person.
Personal narrative and research guide my process, taking shape in the form of figurative and exaggerated abstract figurative styles using acrylic paint, repurposed clothing, and gold metal leaf. The clothing adds texture and variety. Gold metal leaf is fragile by nature, and I use that fragility intentionally to amplify the beauty of the Black figure, most often masculine forms.
A recurring motif in my work is the red lip. Exaggerated red lips were used in minstrel imagery to distort and dehumanize Blackness, reducing it to caricature. I paint red lips to reclaim the beauty of our full lips and give our full features back to us.
The Black masculine form has historically been oppressed, pushed up against systemic racism, and positioned in society as aggressive. It has not been allowed to feel joy, to be vulnerable, to be tender. My work aims to destroy these harmful stereotypes. I center the Black masculine form and give back what has been denied: humanity, softness, and complexity.
My work challenges societal norms around Blackness and masculinity in queer bodies. I make it for myself, for those with shared identities, and for the remainder of society that may not quite get it. I want the viewer to have an emotional experience. I want them to connect with the figures, to acknowledge the humanity of oppressed identities.