April Bey grew up in The Bahamas (New Providence) and now resides and works in Los Angeles, CA as a visual artist and art educator. Bey’s interdisciplinary artwork is an introspective and social critique of American and Bahamian culture, feminism, generational theory, social media, AfroFuturism, AfroSurrealism, post-colonialism and constructs of race within supremacist systems.  

Bey’s artwork is often crafted around the perspective of the fictional planet Atlantica, an Afrofuturist alien world which redefines Blackness outside the context of white supremacy and colonial suffering. Identified by the artist as her true point of origin, the planet was named in reference to stories her Black father told her as a way to explain racism, colourism, texturism and identity when she was a child. From the perspective of extraterrestrial observation and interplanetary transcendence, Bey’s works free Black expression from the politics and victimization of Earth’s ingrained power relations, imagining entirely separate realms and histories where no proverbial “isms” exist, glitter is currency and all inhabitants are glorious in their forms of free expression. In addition, Bey’s Colonial Swag series is a “high-fashion luxury brand on Atlantica that uses fully sustainable, ethically mined colonialism from Earth’s developing countries to create beautiful, priceless pieces of fashion.”

Bey’s work is in the collection of The California African American Museum, The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, The Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Fullerton College Art Gallery, Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA, and more. Bey has exhibited in biennials NE7, NE8 and NE9 in The Bahamas. Bey has also exhibited internationally in Italy, Spain and Accra Ghana, West Africa.

Bey has launched 7 solo exhibitions: Picky Head at Liquid Courage Gallery in Nassau, Bahamas, COMPLY at Coagula Curatorial in Chinatown, Los Angeles, MADE IN SPACE at Band of Vices Gallery in West Adams, a large survey of work spanning several years, Welcome to Atlantica at Fullerton College Art gallery, Atlantica: The Gilda Region at The California African American Museum and When You’re on Another Planet and They Just Fly at Gavlak Gallery Los Angeles.  

Bey is both a practicing contemporary artist and art educator having taught a controversial course at Art Center College of Design called Pretty Hurts analyzing process-based art and Beyoncé hashtag faux feminism. Bey is currently a tenured professor at Glendale College.