Shana Robbins bio

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Shana Robbins is an Atlanta-based artist who works with multidisciplinary processes that cross a spectrum of performance, film, drawing/painting, video, and installation. Her work aims to create new cartographies that advance the self as a set of relations; ritual as a way of relating with the world; landscape as a cultural mirror; the identity of the in-between; the bodying forth of natural forces. Her performance-based work comes from decades of co creation in landscapes around the world.

Robbins has exhibited and performed in galleries and museums including Huerto Roma Verde, Mexico City; Zuckerman Museum; TRAFO center of contemporary art, Poland; Prospect 3+ (biennial), New Orleans; Atlanta Contemporary(biennial); Las Vegas Contemporary Arts Center; El Cosmico Marfa; Monkeytown, Brooklyn; and Winslow Garage, Los Angeles. Robbins has received fellowships and grants from the Vermont Studio Center, Andy Warhol Foundation, and Idea Capital. Her work has been featured in New York Times Magazine and Art Papers,as well as in four books.

Education

2007 M.F.A. Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA
2005 B.F.A. Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta, GA

Select Solo Exhibitions/Performances

2019
Interspecies Lovers, whitespace gallery, Atlanta, GA
2017
Culture Creatures, Performance, Zuckerman Museum, Atlanta
2016
The Other, Performance Installation, Huerto Roma Verde Festival, Mexico City
2015
Indigenous Bodies, Moon Gallery, Berry College, Georgia
2014
Maga, Performance Installation, Prospect 3+, The Nature of Now, New Orleans
The State of Magick/The Magickal State, Conference and performance symposium, Leicester, UK Waking Down, Performance/Exhibition and land installation, Gallery Protocol, Gainesville, FL
2013
Into this World, Performance/Exhibition, Beep Beep Gallery, Atlanta
2011
Area 51 Presents: Alex Grey, Collaborative performance with Woven Tongues, The Quad, Atlanta Second Coming, Video/performance collaboration with Neda Abghari for the Creatives Project, the Goat Farm Art Center, Atlanta
Come in — Out of the Darkness, Performance/Exhibition, Beta Pictoris, Birmingham
2010
Supernatural Conductor, Performance and Exhibition, Atlanta Contemporary
2009
The Politics of Shoes (Tree Ghost in Boston), Live Performance at MOBIUS, Boston
Axis Mundi, Remote Performance at Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon, Iceland
Tree Ghost in Iceland, Remote Performance in Black Desert and at Vatnajokull Glacier, Iceland Monstrous Feminine at the Blue Lagoon, Remote Performance at the Blue Lagoon, Iceland Monstrous Feminine in Mexico, Remote Performance in Coba and the Xpu Ha Jungle, Mexico
2008
Tree Ghost in Georgia, Performance, Grant makers in the Arts Conference, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
2007-2008
This is Me. Be Careful. Exhibition of performance drawings, paintings, collages, and artifacts, Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta
2007
Artichoke, Performance for The Atlanta Biennial, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
2006
Body Double, Performance/Exhibition, No Space Gallery, Seattle
Untitled (Sky is Fallen), Performance, (within Pam Longobardi’s rooftop mirror installation) Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta
Rainbow Machine Performance Series, Georgia State University, Atlanta

Selected Group Exhibitions/Performances

2018
Public performance intervertion with Guillermo Gomez-Pena and La Pocha Nostra, Taos, New Mexico
2017
Breathtaking, inSPIRACJE International Visual Arts Festival, TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Szczecin, Poland
Medium, Zuckerman Museum, Kennesaw University
2016
Performance tour of U.S. in collaboration with Lorraine Leckie. New York based singer/songwriter
2015
Interstices, Art on the Atlanta Beltline, Performance collaboration with Jo Peace, Allen Welty-Green, Susanna Green, and me.you.us.we.them
Living Case, Eyedrum Gallery, Atlanta
2014
The Nature of Now, Performance Installation, Prospect 3+, New Orleans
Haunted, Film showcase, Winslow Garage, Los Angeles
Haunted, Film showcase, Marrickville Garage, Sidney, Australia
Curious Encounters 2, Festival of Interactive Performance presents Shana Robbins and the Nomadic Love Mesa, 7 Stages Theatre, Atlanta
2013
Haunted, Cultural Alliance of Long Beach, Los Angeles
2012
Approach, Lexington Art League, Lexington, Kentucky
ArtPadSF Art Fair, represented by Beta Pictoris Gallery at the San Francisco Art Fair at the Phoenix Hotel
Another Green World, Beep Beep Gallery, Atlanta
Ikura, performance collaboration with the Woven Tongues, Goat Farm Art Center, Atlanta
2011
Pulp, Beta Pictoris, Birmingham
Acting Out, Rowan University Art Gallery, New Jersey
2010
4 Things Not To Talk About in the South: Sex, Race, Politics, Religion, Space One Eleven, Birmingham
2009
Off the Strip, Las Vegas Contemporary Arts Center
Summer Guest House, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
Traveling Video Show #1, Circulatory System, Unit B Gallery (San Antonio); Domy Books (Houston); Okay Mountain (Austin)
Trans Pecos Festival of Music and Love, El Cosmico, Marfa, TX
State of the Nation V Festival, New Orleans, Louisiana
Losing Yourself, Curated online art space (Cathy Byrd, Dr. Susan Richmond)
2008
A-B(o) MB, Presented by Artoconecto, Art Basel (of) Miami Beach pre-Basel showcase at Bakehouse Arts Complex, Miami
Mergers and Acquisitions, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
LeFlash, for Nuit Blanche, Castleberry Hill Art District, Atlanta
Mirror For the 21st Century, BECA Gallery, New Orleans, International curator Helen Pheby of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK (Catalogue available)
Losing Yourself, Curated online art space (Cathy Byrd, Dr. Susan Richmond)
2007
The Atlanta Biennial, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
Viva La Frida, Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta
Dreams Bright and Dark, StudioSwan, Serenbe, Georgia
Outmigration, Multimedia collaborative performance with MOGOLLON and Accidental Movement, Monkey Town, Brooklyn
2006
Dark Whimsy, Timothy Tew Gallery, Atlanta
Drawing Voices, collab with Craig Dongoski, Georgia State University, Atlanta Myth, Dream, Self, and Story, Temple Gallery, Atlanta
Body Double, Solo Performance/Exhibition, No Space Gallery, Seattle
2005
March Winds and April Showers, Saved Gallery of Art and Craft, Brooklyn
Haute Grafix, No Space Gallery, Seattle
Women’s Caucus for Art National Juried Exhibition: Gender in Motion, 3Ten Haustudio, Atlanta (Catalogue available)
Little Things Mean a Lot, The Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta
Refusing to Dance Backwards, Spruill Gallery, Atlanta
1999
Vanessa Beecroft Performance collab, Chelsea Piers, New York

Awards

2018
Performance Laboratory with Guillermo Gomez-Pena and La Pocha Nostra(1 of 20 participants chosen internationally), Penasco, New Mexico
2015
Art on the Atlanta Beltline Project Grant
2012
Creative Capital Professional Development workshop (awarded to selected Atlanta artists) Vermont Studio Center residency, Full Fellowship
2009
Andy Warhol Grant
2008
Idea Capital Grant
Scholarship for Rachel Rosenthal workshop, doing by Doing, Los Angeles
2007
Joseph Perrin Award for artistic merit
2006
Winnie G. Chandler Scholarship for artistic development
2005
Winnie G. Chandler Scholarship for artistic development

Reviews and Press

2017
ArtsAtl, Review: Nature and the Meaning of Boundaries Explored in Poem 88’s “Correspondences”, July 27
Cobb Courier, Kennesaw’s ‘Medium’ Transcends Metaphysical Boundaries, September 30
2014
Viriditas: An Anthology of Contemporary Women Artists, Magpie Magazine Publications, United Kingdom Contemporary Performance Almanac, Contemporary Performance Publishers, New York
Logo Magazine, “Bodysuit”
2013
Beautiful Decay, “Performance Artist Shana Robbins’ Fearless Feminine Rituals,” May
ArtsAtl, “Review: Shana Robbins puzzles us as she peers Into This World at Beep Beep Gallery, June
2012
Contemporary Performance, “In Performance: Approach at Lexington Art League (Kentucky USA),” October
The Art Life: On Creativity and Career, book by Stuart Horodner, curator and artist
2011
Noplaceness: Art in a Post-Urban Landscape (Atlanta Art Now), Inaugural biennial book Renaissance Hotel Magazine, color reproduction, Supernatural Conductor performance at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center
2010
ArtReview, “Shana Robbins: Supernatural Conductor,” August
P’taah, Chris Brann, King Street Sounds/Nite Grooves, Performance photographs used for internationally released album cover and interior
2009
Studio Visit, Volume 5, The Open Studios Press 2008
Mirror For the 21st Century, Exhibition Catalogue
2007
The New York Sun, “Sensory Overload,” June
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Creativity Rooted in Surroundings,” December The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Diverse Biennial an Awkward Mix,” June Second Place, a book of photographs by Jody Fausett
2005
Art Papers Magazine, July/August (color reproduction) Gender in Motion, WCA National Juried Exhibition Catalogue
1999
New York Times Magazine, Vanessa Beecroft Performance, November

Collections
High Museum, Atlanta, Georgia
Matthew Davis, actor (The Vampire Diaries)
Mandarin Hotel, Miami, Florida
The One Only Kanuhura, Maldives
Steven Sebring, Film Director (Patti Smith: Dream of Life)