Genevieve Gaignard creates installations, sculptures, and photographic self-portraits that elicit dialogue around race, beauty, and cultural identity. As a biracial woman in the U.S., Gaignard investigates the aesthetic and cultural divide between black and white—a chasm as palpable as it is “invisible.” She interrogates notions of “passing” by positioning her own female body as the chief site of exploration—challenging viewers to navigate the powers and anxieties of intersectional identity. She retools found imagery from the 19th and 20th centuries—including vintage wallpaper, antique furniture, found figurines and décor—that have perpetuated racist stereotypes as a way to challenge and redefine their symbolic meaning. Gaignard also mines her own experiences to create images or environments that provoke critical thinking and changes in perspective. Utilizing soft color palettes, dark humor, and vintage materials in her staged photographs and imagined domestic environments, she makes artworks that reexamine social hierarchies and stereotypical beauty standards to create sites of resistance.
Genevieve Gaignard was born in Massachusetts in 1981 and lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her BFA in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA, and her MFA in Photography from Yale University, New Haven, CT. Recent solo exhibitions include, I’m Sorry I Never Told You That You’re Beautiful at Vielmetter Los Angeles, CA (2019), Counterfeit Currency at FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY (2018), and Smell the Roses, at the California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2016-2017). Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Bentonville, AR; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA; and Prospect.4, New Orleans.
- 1981
- 2007
- 2014
Selected Solo and Two Person Exhibitions
- 2024
- 2022
- 2020
- 2019
- 2018
- 2017
- 2016
- 2015
Selected Group Exhibitions
- 2024-2025
- 2024
- 2023-2024
- 2023
- 2022
- 2021-2022
- 2021
- 2021-2022
- 2021
- 2020
- 2019
- 2018-2019
- 2018
- 2017
- 2016
- 2014
- 2013
Bibliography
- 2024
- 2023
- 2022
- 2021
- 2020
- 2019
- 2018
- 2017
- 2016
- 2015
- 2014
Catalogues
- 2024
- 2021
Residencies & Studio Programs
- 2023
- 2020
- 2019
Public Collections