Ceysson & Bénétière

b. Chicago, IL 

​Education

Temple University, Tyler School of Art, MFA in Painting with one year of concentration in Rome, Italy

Brown University, BA in Visual Arts

Fashion Institute of Technology, Associates Degree in Accessory Design

Ayana Evans is a Chicago born, NYC-based, performance artist and activist. Her guerilla-style performances have been staged at El Museo del Barrio, The Barnes Foundation, The Bronx Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum, Newark Museum, Queens Museum and a variety of free public locations. 

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Evans' ongoing public interventions include Operation Catsuit and I Just Came Here to Find a Husband. Upcoming performances include Wellesley College's Taking Off the White Gloves showcase and Giving You the Best That We Got: The Ayana & Tsedaye Variety Show at the Center for Performance Research. Her annual C.R.E.A.M. Career Fair For More Than Just Survival welcomed over 200 attendees in 2023, and transformed Brooklyn's Weeksville Heritage Center into both a job-hunting space and interactive environment for formerly incarcerated folks trying to re-enter the workforce. 

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Evans holds an MFA in painting from the Tyler School of Art and a BA in Visual Arts from Brown University. At present she is an adjunct-professor at Brown University and the Editor at Large at CultBytes.

As a performance artist, Evans approaches what it means to be a woman with complete honesty. Pieces like I Just Came Here To Find A Husband explore her struggle with being single and finding peace within herself, while Frying Chicken depicts her insecurities about blackness, showing her in heels, eating fried chicken with baby oil and chicken grease all over her body. Her feminist performance, Girl, I’d Drink Your Bath Water riffs on a popular catcall, in which she used a bathtub, water, and soap to cleanse herself.

Her most popular body of work, Operation Catsuit, started when Evans was mocked for wearing a neon-green catsuit to art events, yet accepted when she wore the appropriate “artsy look.” “My body was fully covered but because of my curvy shape, the outfit was controversial,” Evans says.

Watching her perform with such physicality, and touch on emotional and political issues, sheds light on the significance of the black body, as well as having pride in your body.

Solo and Two Person Exhibitions

2022           

Cash Rules Everything Around Me (CREAM) Career Fair, Weeksville Heritage Canter, Brooklyn NY.

2021         

 I Just Came Here to Find a Husband and Start a Got Damn Revolution, Brown University,Providence RI

2020           

Constructing A Black Ass Art Show, Wa Na Wari Gallery, Seattle, WA (Online solo show)

2020         

 I Came by Boat So Meet Me at The Beach, August Wilson Cultural Center, Pittsburgh, PA                     

2019           

Spectacle and Change Beach Performance, Siren Arts Festival, Asbury Park, NJ

2019         

My Colonial Get Away, EFA Robert Blackburn Printshop at NADA, Governors Island, NY (Solo)

A Black Woman's Art Show and A White Man's Exhibition, Cuchifritos Gallery,  NYC (Solo)

2018           

If Keisha Jumped Off a Bridge, Would You Do It Too? Medium Tings, Brooklyn, NY (Solo)

Selected Group Exhibitions/One Time Performances

2023           

BIG HAPPY: A Momentary Utopia, performances in collaboration with Wanda Riumundi Ortiz, The Momentary/Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR

2022           

Loophole of Retreat, performance for symposium organized by Simone Leigh and Rashida Bumbry, Venice, Italy

2022           

A Legacy of Textures and Sun, a collaboration with Anina Major, activating her installation Haven No 3, Socrates Sculpture Park

2020           

INVERSE Performance Festival: Digital Ed, The Momentary at Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR  

Digital Loft Performances with Q & A, Franklin Furnace Archive, New York, NY

2020           

4 Bodies One Screen, Rubin Foundation, Zoom performance organized& curated by Maria Hupfield

Facial Performance + 'Gurl' I'd Drink Your Bathwater, COMPANY Gallery, NYC, Zoom performance

INVERSE Summer Residency Event with RACE Matters SLO, (based in San Louis Obispo, CA)

Performance in honor of "Luscious" a retrospective of works by Wendy Edwards, Brown University, RI

2019           

Operation Catsuit Performance at RISD Museum in collaboration with the Dirt Palace, Providence , RI     

Performance and Exhibit, Savage-Lewis Residency, Art on the Vine, Martha's Vineyard, MA        

Sparkle Performance and Workshop at Cuesta Collage, San Louis Obispo, CA

Studio Immersion Program(SIP) Fellowship Exhibition, EFA Robert Blackburn Gallery, NY, NY

Every Woman Biennial (Formerly The Whitney Houston Biennial), La Mama, NYC     

Females Occupying Space, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ

Rape, Representation, and Radicality, The Feminist Art Project @ CAA New York, NY

2018           

Inverse Performance Night, Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

Altered, Company Gallery, New York, NY

Inverse Performance Art Festival, Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AK

Drink My Kool-Aid, Living Arts Festival, Tulsa, OK

Temporal and Corporeal: A Broad Scope Of Performance Art, Ohio University

Her Art Will Be Cannibal, Longwood Art Gallery, Bronx, NY

2017           

Art in Odd Places: SENSE, 14th Street performances, New York, NY

Dancer with Stanley Love Performance Group, The Kitchen, NY, NY

Red Carpet Veggie Harvest, Laundromat Project, Bronx, NY

African Body Snatchers, Chale Wote Street Festival, Accra, Ghana

Operation Catsuit Gardening, Laundromat Project, Bronx, NY

Just Situations, Int'l Performance Fest, Panoply Performance Lab, Brooklyn, NY

Rapid Pulse Retrospect, Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago, IL

ITINERANT, Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY

A Person of the Crowd, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA

Festival International de Art Performance (FIAP), Fort de France, Martinique  

2016           

Gurl I'd Drink Your Bathwater, Prizm Art Fair, Miami Fl

Make Your Own Way, Satellite Art Fair, Miami, FL

Interior Interruptions -Post Election, Bullet Space Gallery, NY, NY

Coloring/Harnessing/Labor-Supreme/Electives, PPL, Brooklyn, NY

Stopping Traffic, at StartUp Art Fair with Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago, IL

Raw Forms Forum, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ

The Pineapple Show, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK

Back in 5 Min Artist Residency at El Museo Del Barrio, New York, NY

#BlackGirlLit (traveling series), Five Myles Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Performing the SAT: free SAT classes given in 'the Catsuit', Jamaica Flux, NY, NY

21st Suffragettes: Int'l Performance by Women, Grace Exhibition Space, NY

2015         

Post Midnight: SHPC responds to After Midnight Exhibit, Queens Museum, NY

Imperial Envy, durational performance,  ABC No Rio, New York, NY

Rapid Pulse Performance Festival, Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago, IL

Call of the Wild, AUX Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA