Shoshanna Weinberger

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Shoshanna Weinberger received her MFA from Yale  University School of Art in 2003 and BFA from The School of the Art Institute of  Chicago in 1995. Living and working in Newark, NJ, since 2006, Weinberger’s work references her Caribbean-American background, which explores the complexity of heritage and the psychology of peripheral identity. She considers herself a visual anthropologist, cataloguing and surveying these experiences that ultimately question notions of assumed beauty norms and identity through ongoing serial works that result in paintings, drawings, collage, mixed media, and sculptural installations. 

Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous invitational group and solo exhibitions. Weinberger is a five-time participant of the Jamaica  Biennial from 2006 to 2017 held in Kingston, and included in the inaugural 2013  Martinique Biennale. Recent solo exhibitions include: The Otherness of Strangefruit,  Harold B. Lemmerman Gallery, NJCU (2018); Invisible Fruit: Stories of Camouflage  from the Periphery, Project for Empty Space (2018); Allegories of the Invisible, Trestle  Gallery, Brooklyn (2019); Passing Between the Lines, Long Gallery, Harlem, NYC  (2020); and Fragments of Perception, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY (2021). Select group shows include: Natural Histories, curated by Nicole Smythe-Johnson and O’Neil Lawrence,  National Gallery of Jamaica (2013); Mutations, Tiwani Contemporary, London (2014); Trek, SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa (2015); Jamaican Pulse: Art and Politics  From Jamaica and the Diaspora, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (2016); Born  In Flames, curated by Jasmine Wahi, Bronx Museum (2021); Emancipated Imaginaries,  curated by AKAA, Manifestia, Lyon, France (2021); If You Lived Here You’d Be Home  By Now, Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY (2021); Black Beauty, Arthur Roger Gallery, New  Orleans (2021); and currently in Lux et Veritas, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale (on view until January 2023). 

A recipient of several awards, residencies, and grants that include: 2014 Joan Mitchell  Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant; 2015 Joan Mitchell Center, Artist-in-Residence, New Orleans; 2016 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council of the  Arts; 2018 Project for Empty Space, Artist-in-Residence, Newark, NJ; 2019 Dawn Scott  Memorial Award, presented by the National Gallery of Jamaica, selected by Edward  M. Gomez; 2020 Newark Artist Accelerator Grant made possible by the Andy Warhol  Foundation; 2021 City of Newark Creative Catalyst Fund Grant; 2022 Fellowship from  NJ State Council of the Arts. Weinberger finished a two-year appointment as the 2019- 2021 McMillan Stewart Endowed Chair in Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art;  and was invited by the Department of Art, Culture, and Media, as Adjunct Professor in  Painting, Rutgers University-Newark. She starts a 14-week, Artist-in-Residence, at  McColl Center, this Fall 2022. 

Public collections include: New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ; The Newark  Museum of Art, Newark, NJ; The Sagamore Collection, Miami, FL; Girls Club Collection, Fort Lauderdale, FL; The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL; Davidson  College, Davidson, NC; The AC Kingston Collection, Kingston, JA; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE.