STATEMENT
My work reimagines Black identity as transcending linear time—an ongoing generational memory that ebbs and flows between reality and possibility. Through a Black feminist lens informed by magical realism, science fiction and hip hop, I explore the boundless potential of the Black body, what happens when it is apathetic to proving humanness--using color and language as central tools. By merging painting, augmented reality and video practices, I aim to expand the dimensions of Black identity, pushing the boundaries of time, space, and representation.
In my work, I use bold, abstract depictions of the Black body to explore its historical, cultural, and linguistic significance. Drawing from African art and contemporary representations, my figures bridge the past and the imagined futures of Black bodies. I engage with the ways they have been physically and socially mutilated throughout history to the present, reimagining these narratives into visions of autonomy and apathy to proving humanness. I theorize that Blackness, as the absorption of all color, can be understood through a physics lens as having an infinite wavelength—symbolizing its capacity to transcend time and space. This concept informs my use of Black bodies, "thingness", and unconventional materials such as tarps and video games, which transform symbols of labor and commodity into layered compositions. These works evoke spaces of carnivalesque agency and reclamation, offering a reimagined vision of the Black body's resilience and purpose.
Influenced by Richard Iton’s In Search of the Black Fantastic, my work embraces the Black experience as dynamic, fluid, and multi-dimensional. In my piece Microplastics in my Pussy (2025), I reimagined the cultural significance of womanhood for Black women, employing Sims 4 symbols of birth control and prominent Black woman figures within an imagined space unbounded by time. Here, microplastics become a symbol of the violent history gynecology has with black women and their fragmented minute proximity to the hegemonic concept of womanhood. Defying linear time and space, my work creates a visual language that explores the infinite dimensions of Black identity, envisioning futures where Blackness is unbounded and transcendent.
BIO
Montaysia Yuneek is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher based in Brooklyn, New York. She earned her B.F.A. in Art with a minor in African American Studies from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in painting and drawing at Pratt Institute. Sims has exhibited in A Meadows Prayer (2024), her solo exhibition, Creativity Offers Us A New Formula For Life 2.0 (2024) at the University of Winchester in the UK, and The Mother’s Roots: An Afrodiasporic Vision (2025) in Las Vegas, and has created book illustrations, such as for Sunday Dinner by Angela Shante and My Dad Said I'm His Biggest Plantspiration by Danae Crayton. She is also an active workshop facilitator, dedicated to empowering Black voices through art.
CONTACT:
MontaysiaYuneek@gmail.com
Instagram/@Byuneek