MOCA GA / Calendar

2022/2023 Working Artist Project

This round of Working Artist Projects was curated by Drew Sawyer, Phillip Leonian and Edith Rosenbaum Leonian Curator of Photography at the Brooklyn Museum

About the Exhibition

“Marking the 20th anniversary of my relocation to Atlanta from Accra, Under Her Canopy serves as a reflection of the people, the histories, and the cultural fabrics that I continue to learn from and share in. These works are a collection of stories, fragmented and fused together with room for the addition of narratives to come. This exhibition also celebrates the many ways that women—within my family, and beyond—continue to enable and inspire my creative practice. This assemblage of histories pays homage to my great (x3) grandmother Priscilla (Marshall) Young, interactions with griots and my desire to share space and stories with Madan Sara in Haiti. The materials that make up these works are the same ones that make up the hard and soft woods hidden behind white gallery walls. Here, they are optimistic for the future because they know from whence they came.”

–Ato Ribeiro

Image above: Detail of “Madan Sara,” 2023, Repurposed wood, high-density polyethylene (HDPE), wood glue, 72 x 48 x 1.25 inches, by Ato Ribeiro

About Ato Ribeiro

Ato Ribeiro (b. 1989) is a multidisciplinary artist working in a variety of media including sculptural installation, drawing and printmaking. He was born in Philadelphia, PA. and spent the formative years of his life in Accra, Ghana. He was the 2017 Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Emerging Artist Award recipient, Artist in Resident at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany, and received Fellowships at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT and Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Madison, ME. His work is in the permanent collections of the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, the Mercedes-Benz USA Headquarters, Detroit Institute of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum and some private collections. He earned his B.A. from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and his M.F.A. in Print Media from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Major funding provided by the Charles Loridans Foundation, the Antinori Foundation, and the AEC Trust, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts.