In the Studio: André Leon Gray

André Leon Gray is an artist based in Raleigh, North Carolina, and a 2024 Joan Mitchell Fellow. We interviewed Gray about his work and creative practice in February 2025.

As an interdisciplinary artist, I use various media, such as sculpture, installation, collage, drawing, painting, photography, video, and audio. They are methods to express my observations, research, and meditations on the human condition. My work primarily focuses on the black experience as an entry point into a broader dialogue about historical narratives, identity, culture, power structures, and social hierarchies.

My work is motivated by curiosity. I have questions and I’m seeking answers. Since I was a young boy, I wanted to know how the world works and as an adult reveal what I find within my work, whether displaying its beauty, blemishes, or scars. I’m motivated by a need to speak about moments within our “pastpresentfuture” and how it affects humanity.

In my collages, sculptures, and installations, I am “sampling” preexisting objects and materials from a broader context and compiling them into a new visual narrative, like hip-hop producer Pete Rock would take a section of a piano riff from “I Love Music” by Ahmad Jamal Trio and add it to “The World Is Yours” by Nas. North Carolina has a rich culture enhanced by its creatives, and it is my intent to contribute to that foundation and be inspired by those who pushed boundaries in their craft.

My studio is in Raleigh, North Carolina at Anchorlight, a building filled with 27 artists at various stages of their art careers. I’ve been there since 2022, and feel I’ve outgrown my studio’s small size due to the scale of some of my work, but I can use a common work area or reserve a project room for bigger ideas. The advantage of being there is getting feedback and advice from my peers and vice versa, but I’m the one who usually gives advice based on my experiences in the art world since 1997.

I am currently preparing for a solo show in May and June at Artspace here in Raleigh, North Carolina. My last solo show was in 2020, so it’s been a while since I’ve shown a significant body of work other than participating in group shows. I look forward to having my first solo museum show someday. Since 2019, I have been producing unreleased music with the goal of releasing an EP or album on vinyl. It’s mainly dance and house music with some cinematic soundscapes.

My process varies, depending on what will become the final work. Listening to music, watching a documentary, or researching a subject that fascinates me may spark various ideas that eventually branch out into a concept. Most of my practice uses found, recycled, and reclaimed objects. I’ve been given various items by friends and have maintained ways to source objects and discarded materials to use throughout my career. Immediately, I know if an object could be used at some point in my work if it resonates with me or not.

Sometimes it starts with an object, and then an idea starts to bloom. Other times, like jazz improvisation, I place materials together intuitively to see what compositions will work, the direction it is heading, and what narrative begins to appear.

The foundation of my practice is research into a subject and writing notes or drawing sketches in a small sketchbook. I wrote eight pages of comments with drawings for In the absence of light, flip the script in your mind (2021). It started with someone discarding two antique Blackamoor bronze figurines. I took that opportunity to disrupt their implied servitude into a representation of empowerment as guardians protecting the planet, while standing on a horizontal black monolith inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The time it takes to complete a work depends on the message, the materials, and the coded layers involved.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about cycles, patterns, and shifting paradigms. I’ve been gravitating towards addressing the idea of what or who is valued, honored, and respected—who decides what is for the taking and who gets the short end of the stick. Throughout history, our ancestors and ourselves have been witnesses to people being uprooted and displaced for another’s gain, even as you’re reading this right now. The game never changes, only the players.

I’m a critical thinker, trying to see beyond the veil, so my work has layers to it like an onion. The viewer’s experience depends on their patience to look closer and discover the details, to peel back each symbolic layer to decode various meanings and associations that speak on the subject at hand. My work exists to encourage a thought-provoking experience and conversations among those who engage with it in that space. That’s been a driving idea behind most of my work, whether it’s obvious or implied.

Interview and editing by Jenny Gill. Learn more about André Leon Gray’s work at andreleongray.art.