b. 1989; Philadelphia, PA
Education
2018 MFA, Yale University, New Haven, CT
2010 BA, Integrative Arts, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025 People who die bad dont stay in the ground, Philadelphia, PA
2022grace comes violently, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY
New Works, McClain Gallery, Houston, TX
2020 Feeling the Spirit in The Dark, The Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art, Pittsburgh, PA
2019 Rude / Emergencies, Ltd Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Imagining Flesh Through Shadows, Alexander Brest Museum & Gallery, Jacksonville, FL
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The Language Must Not Sweat, Locust Projects, Miami, FL
- notes towards becoming a spill, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026
SPACE IS THE PLACE: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Exposure: Black Queer Visual Constellations, Brown Arts Institute, Brown University, Providence, RI
2025
Essex Hemphill: Take care of your blessings, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Transcendence: A Century of Black Queer Ecstasy, University of Texas, Austin, TX
2024
Notes on Masculinity, Lyles & King, New York, NY
2023
A Two-Way Mirror. Double Consciousness in Contemporary Glass by Black Artists, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA
Full and Pure: Body, Materiality, Gender, Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX
Behind Abstract Forms, Fragment Gallery, New York, NY
2022
Invisible Thread, The Baker Museum, Naples, FL
When I State that I am an Anarchist, PLATO Ostrava, Czech Republic
2021
This Is the Day, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR
notes towards becoming a spill, Performa 2021 Biennial, New York, NY
A Beautiful America, Museum Dhondt—Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium
Fetiche, Morán Morán, Mexico City, Mexico
2020
Imagine Otherwise, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Cleveland, OH
Enunciated Life, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2018
The Way We Live, Aperture Summer Open, Aperture Foundation, New York, NY
Familiar Boundaries. Infinite Possibilities, August Wilson African American Cultural Center, Pittsburgh, PA
2017
Say It Loud: Art, History, Rebellion, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI
2016
Labor Relations, Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Wroclaw, Poland
Go Tell It: Civil Rights Photography, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Public Art Commissions
2026Hold, Arts Landing, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Pittsburgh, PA
Selected Awards & Grants
2026 Humanities in Place Grant, Mellon Foundation
2025 VMFA Aaron Siskind Award for Photography, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
2022The Pittsburgh Foundation Exposure Artist Fellowship
2020 Art Matters Foundation Grant
Leslie-Lohman Museum Artist Fellowship
2019 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant
2018 The Advancing Black Art Grant, The Pittsburgh Foundation & The Heinz Endowments
Selected Public Collections
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ
Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI
University of Texas at Austin, TX
Wroclaw Contemporary Museum, Wroclaw, Poland
Teaching Experience
Visiting MFA Core Faculty, Carnegie Mellon University School of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Visiting Critic, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT
Residencies
2025 Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, LA
2023Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program Awardee, New York, NY
2020 Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL
Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art, Pittsburgh, PA
2016 Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pittsburgh, PA
Public Programs
2025 Statements on Style, MoMA, New York, NY
2021Aperture Conversations: Antwaun Sargent, Shikeith, and Naima Green on Black Queer Utopia, Aperture, New York, NY (online)
2019 Race, Sex, & Cinema: The World of Marlon Riggs, BAM, Brooklyn, NY
2018 Studio Teens Lecture and Workshop, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
2017 An Evening with Shikeith, MoMA, New York, NY
Art, Power, Protest: Northwestern Conference on Human Rights, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
#Blackmendream: Screening and Discussion, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
2016 Photography and the Politics of Representation, Vera List Center and Aperture Foundation, New York, NY
Women Take the Reel Film Festival, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
#Blackmendream, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA
2015 Brothas Gonna Work It Out, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
My People Film Series, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Pittsburgh, PA
Publications
2026
The Practicing Refusal Collective. Thinking from Black: A Lexicon. Edited by Tina M. Campt, Kaiama L. Glover, Canisia Lubrin, Tavia Nyong’o, Christina Sharpe, and Alexander Ghedi Weheliye. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026. Contributor.
2022Shikeith. Shikeith: Notes towards Becoming a Spill. Text by Ashon T. Crawley. New York: Aperture Foundation, 2022.
Selected Scholarship
2023Omelsky, Matthew. Fugitive Time: Global Aesthetics and the Black Beyond. Durham: Duke University Press, 2023.
Tobias, James. “Black and Queer, Music on Screen: Distanced Derivations.” liquid blackness: journal of aesthetics and black studies 7, no. 1 (2023): 4–24.
Romero Juncosa, Antoni. Of Fear and Hope: A Phenomenology of HIV in Danez Smith’s Poetry. PhD diss., Universitat de Barcelona, 2023.
2022Crawley, Ashon T. Text in Shikeith: Notes towards Becoming a Spill. New York: Aperture Foundation, 2022.
2021Vuković, Vuk. “Feeling the Spirit in the Dark, Shikeith, Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 2020–March 2021.” SECAC. Spring 2021.
Selected Bibliography
2026Courteau, Rose. “The Artist Making Work About Sweat, Ghosts and the Rivers of Pittsburgh.” T: The New York Times Style Magazine. April 23, 2026.
Riva, Emma. “Pittsburgh’s New $31m Arts Landing Combines Public Art with Civic Engagement.” The Art Newspaper. April 24, 2026.
2025The Phillips Collection. “The Phillips Collects: Shikeith.” November 25, 2025.
Corry, Ellen. “Shikeith: People Who Die Bad Don’t Stay in the Ground | TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image.” Musée Magazine. September 4, 2025.
2023Fateman, Johanna. “Behind Abstract Forms.” 4Columns. March 24, 2023.
2022Conner, Allison Noelle. “Opacity and the Spill: The Photographs of Clifford Prince King, Shikeith, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya.” Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles. November 2022.
Wilbekin, Emil. “What Does It Mean to Be a Young, Black Queer Artist Right Now?” T: The New York Times Style Magazine. September 16, 2022.
Rosen, Miss. “Shikeith’s Spiritual Photographs of Black Masculinity.” i-D. June 13, 2022.
Huxtable, Isaac. “Lost in a Moment: Shikeith’s Wordless Images of Gay Sensuality.” Elephant. June 19, 2022.
Heinrich, Will. “What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries Right Now.” The New York Times. June 2, 2022.
Hopkins, Zoë. “Critics’ Picks: Shikeith, grace comes violently.” Artforum. May 2022.
Reid, Tiana. “Shikeith’s Black Uncanny.” Aperture. Spring 2022.
2021Smith, Cherise. “Shikeith Cathey on Creating Closeness in a Socially-Distanced World.” i-D, The Darker Issue, no. 365. November 30, 2021.
Lanay, Jessica. “‘O My Body, Make of Me Always a Man Who Questions!’: Shikeith.” BOMB Magazine. October 21, 2021.
Byrd, Rikki, Shikeith, and Taylor Renee Aldridge. “‘Enunciated Life’: Taylor Renee Aldridge and Shikeith on the Queering of Black Spirituality.” Frieze. July 21, 2021.
Miranda, Carolina A. “Art That Finds Vulnerability and Surrender in the Black Religious Experience.” Los Angeles Times. July 10, 2021.
“New Talent: Shikeith.” Art in America. May/June 2021.
Pavlis, Preston. “Feeling the Spirit in the Dark.” C Magazine, no. 148, Body Language. 2021.
Harrison, Mia Imani. “Shikeith Exorcises the Histories That Haunt Black Queer Men.” Frieze. January 21, 2021.
2020Sargent, Antwaun. “The Queer Black Artists Building Worlds of Desire.” Aperture. December 8, 2020.
2019Mizota, Sharon. “Black Masculinity and an Artist’s Exploration of Desire, Intimacy and Queerness.” Los Angeles Times. October 16, 2019.
Rosen, Miss. “Artist Shikeith Explores Black Male Desire Through His Photography.” Dazed. September 2, 2019.
Tranen, Joshua Gutterman. “An Intimate Film Traces Black Masculinity from Boyhood.” Hyperallergic. May 31, 2019.
Smith, T.K. “Notes Towards Becoming a Spill: Shikeith at Atlanta Contemporary.” Burnaway. April 18, 2019.
2018Sargent, Antwaun. “Where ‘Block Party’ Has a Score of Meanings.” The New York Times. August 16, 2018.
2017Sargent, Antwaun. “Tender Photos of Black Men That Redefine Masculinity.” VICE. August 22, 2017.
Bernard, Jesse. “The Artist Unraveling Black Magic & Masculinity in Himself.” Dazed. 2017.
2015Brumfitt, Stuart. “Artist Shikeith and His #Blackmendream Project.” i-D. June 2, 2015.
Ajaka, Nadine. “When Did You Become a Black Man?” The Atlantic. 2015.
2014Neely, Priska. “‘#Blackmendream’: Showcasing a Different Side of Black Manhood.” NPR. December 14, 2014.