Gay
Pasley
Edmond, OK
photography
Gay Pasley's photography and writing seek to capture the under-reported experiences of what it is to be a working-class woman of color.
Artist Statement
I use my art to say something about my dual identity as Black- American, immigrant and as a woman. In so doing, I reconstruct narratives of race, borders, diaspora, stereotypes, folklore, and anthropology. I use found photography to rethink narratives of displacement, invisibility, and trauma transfer. My work attempts to clarify my 50 years of lived experience through multimedia. At the intersection of pen, and camera I create art that meets me at my crossroads. It is there that I lay my body on the line so that I understand and navigate my lived experience to its full potential.
Artist Bio
Gay Pasley is a professional nurse, an award-winning community leader and photographer whose artistry is featured in Loud Zoo, Abstract Magazine and Maintenant: A Journal of Dada Writing and Art and is a regular contributor to Art Mama Moves. She is a recent graduate of the Oklahoma City Red- Earth MFA Program. She has presented as a lecturer for organizations such as the International Association of Forensic Nurses, Society for Photographic Education, the Ralph Ellison Foundation, and the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, Scissortail Writing Festival. Gay has publications appearing or forthcoming in Thread Literary Magazine, Hard Crackers Press, Elsewhere Magazine, Amistad, Transitions, Snapdragon: A Journal of Healing, Morkan’s Horse, Minola Review, Flatbush Review, and Obsidian; Cliterature and Arts in the African Diaspora. Gay’s photography and writing seek to capture the under-reported experiences and challenges of what it is to be a working-class woman of color.
Swimming with more than Fish
Antigua Sugar Mill 1643 built by my ancestors...
I See You
Loving
The New Old Ones
The Return
Not for Sale
Nothing but Blue Sky
Ain't I a Woman Too
The Issue
Sign of the Times
Born Suspect
Down by the River
The Tattooist After Rockwell
