EDUCATION
M.F.A. Painting, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
B.A. Visual Arts, Brown University, Providence, RI A.A. Accessory Design, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, NY
EDUCATION
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021
I Just Came Here to Find a Husband and Start a Got Damn Revolution Brown University, Providence, RI
2020
INVERSE Performance Festival: Digital Ed, The Momentary Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR
Facial Performance & Gurl I'd Drink Your Bathwater COMPANY Gallery, NYC
Constructing A Black Ass Art Show Wa Na Wari Gallery, Seattle, WA
2019
Spectacle and Change Siren Arts Festival, Asbury Park, NJ
My Colonial Get Away EFA Robert Blackburn Printshop at NADA, Governors Island, NY
Operation Catsuit Performance at RISD Museum (in collaboration with the Dirt Palace) Providence, RI
Sparkle Performance and Workshop Cuesta Collage, San Louis Obispo, CA
2018
If Keisha Jumped Off a Bridge, Would You Do It Too? Medium Tings, Brooklyn, NY
Rape, Representation, and Radicality Performance The Feminist Art Project at CAA, New York, NY
Inverse Performance Art Festival (gallery talk & performance) Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AK
Drink My Kool-Aid Living Arts Festival, Tulsa, OK
2017
I Want Some Sugar With My Sh** (Art in Odd Places) New York, NY
Catsuit Gardening Laundromat Project, Bronx, NY
Jumping Backwards and Sparkles Festival International de Art Performance (FIAP), Fort de France, Martinique
2016
Gurl I'd Drink Your Bathwater Prizm Art Fair, Miami FL
Make Your Own Way Satellite Art Fair, Miami, FL
2015
Stay With Me with Rapid Pulse Performance Festival Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago, IL
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
ARTIST TALKS & PANELS
2019
Panelist: “Working Outside the Institution”, SVA MFA Program Talk, New York, NY
Performance Workshop and Lecture, School of the Visual Arts (SVA), Governors Island, NY
2018
Artist Talk with Holly Bass, Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA
Artist Talk with Uri McMillian, Medium Tings Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Artist Talk and Panel Discussion, Ohio University, Athens, OH
2017
African Body Snatchers Discussion Chale Wote, Accra, Ghana
Artist Talk, Arts Dojo, Kansas City, MO
#BlackGirlLit Screening and Panel Discussion (sponsored by 3 Dot Zine) MoCADA, Brooklyn, NY
"Power Share/Power Surge" Knockdown Center, Queens, NY
2016
Moving Media Symposium Brown University, Providence, RI
"TALKaTIVE" Artist Lecturer/Panel Participant Queens Museum, Queens, NY
Performative Artist Talk Rex Nettleford Conference, Kingston, JA
ARTIST TALKS & PANELS
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Adjunct Professor, NYU Gallatin, New York, NY (JAN 2022-PRESENT)
Adjunct Lecturer, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY (SEPT 2021-PRESENT)
Professor of the Practice, Brown University, Providence, RI (SEPT 2021-MAY 2021)
Adjunct Professor, Brown University, Providence, RI (SEPT 2017-AUG 2020)
Art Specialist, SASF, Queens, NY (FEB 2015-AUG 2018)
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
DUO & GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Giving You The Best That We Got: The Ayana & Tsedaye Variety Show (in collaboration with Tsedaye Makkonen) Center for Performance Research, Brooklyn, NY
2023
BIG HAPPY: A Momentary Utopia (in collaboration with Wanda Riumundi Ortiz) Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR
2022
Loophole of Retreat (performance for symposium organized by Simone Leigh and Rashida Bumbry) Venice, Italy
A Legacy of Textures and Sun (in collaboration with Anina Major activating her installation Haven) Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY
2020
I Came by Boat So Meet Me at The Beach (in collaboration with Tsedaye Makonnen) August Wilson Cultural Center, Pittsburgh, PA
Digital Loft Performances & Q & A Franklin Furnace Archive, New York, NY
4 Bodies One Screen (in collaboration with Maria Hupfield, Esther Neff and TJ Dedeaux) Rubin Foundation, New York, NY
INVERSE Summer Residency Event w/ RACE Matters SLO (performance and lecture in collaboration with Tsedaye Makonnen) San Louis Obispo, CA
Performance in honor of "Luscious" (a retrospective of works by Wendy Edwards) Brown University, Providence, RI
2019
Performance and Exhibit (Savage-Lewis Residency) Art on the Vine, Martha's Vineyard, MA
A Black Woman's Art Show and A White Man's Exhibition Cuchifritos Gallery, NYC
Studio Immersion Program (SIP) Fellowship Exhibition EFA Robert Blackburn Gallery, New York, NY
Every Woman Biennial (Formerly The Whitney Houston Biennial) La Mama, New York, NY
Females Occupying Space Rutgers University, Newark, NJ
2018
Inverse Performance Night (with Holly Bass) Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA
Altered (group exhibition) Company Gallery, New York, NY
Temporal and Corporeal: A Broad Scope Of Performance Art (performer & panelist) Ohio University, Athens, OH
Her Art Will Be Cannibal Longwood Art Gallery, Bronx, NY
2017
Dancer (with Stanley Love Performance Group) The Kitchen, New York, NY
Red Carpet Veggie Harvest (featuring the Stanley Love Performance Group) Laundromat Project, Bronx, NY
African Body Snatchers Chale Wote Street Festival, Accra, Ghana
Just Situations Int'l Performance Fest, Panoply Performance Lab, Brooklyn, NY
Rapid Pulse Retrospect Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago, IL
ITINERANT Bronx Museum, Bronx, NY
A Person of the Crowd Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
2016
Interior Interruptions-Post Election Bullet Space Gallery, New York, NY
Coloring/Harnessing/Labor-Supreme/Electives PPL, Brooklyn, NY
Stopping Traffic at StartUp Art Fair Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago, IL
Raw Forms Forum (group exhibition) Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
The Pineapple Show (in collaboration with and curated by Zina Saro-Wiwa) Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK
Back in 5 Min (residency) El Museo Del Barrio, New York, NY
Stay With Me with #BlackGirlLit (group show curated by Dell M. Hamilton) Five Myles Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
21st Suffragettes: Int'l Performance by Women Grace Exhibition Space, NY
2015
Social Health Performance Club: Post-Midnight (group exhibition curated by Reya Seghal) responds to After Midnight Exhibit, Queens Museum, NY
Imperial Envy (durational performance) ABC No Rio, New York, NY
Call of the Wild at Untamed: An Evening of Live Performances by Tara White, Ayana Evans, and Christen Clifford AUX Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
DUO & GROUP EXHIBITIONS
AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, RESIDENCIES
2022
Chamberlain Award for Residency Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA
Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship Jerome Foundation, Saint Paul, MN
2021
Yaddo Residency Saratoga Springs, NY
2019
Savage Lewis Residency and Grant, Art on the Vine, Martha’s Vineyard
2018
Artists Alliance LES Studio Program Residency Artists Alliance Inc., New York, NY
Mason Studio Immersion Project (SIP) Fellowship at EFA’s Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, New York, NY
2017
NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship NYFA, New York, NY
Franklin Furnace FUND Grant Franklin Furnace Archive, Brooklyn, NY
Emergency Grant Recipient Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York, NY
2014
Travel and Study Grant Jerome Foundation, Saint Paul, MN
AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS, RESIDENCIES
SELECTED PRESS
ArtForum, Dec 2022, "Top Ten highlights of 2022" by Jack Bankowsky
HyperAllergic, Nov 2022, "Discovering How Black Women Might Forge a Path to Freedom" by Seph Rodney
The New York Times, June 2020, "What It Takes To Raise Up A Black Woman" by Seph Rodney
BOMB Magazine, Jan 2020, "Outstanding, Girl You Knock Me Out" by Jessica Lanay
ArtNet.com, May 2019, "Editor's Picks: 18 Things Not to Miss in NY's Art World, Frieze Week Edition"
Hyperallergic.com, July 2018 "A Performance Artist's Tests of Endurance Honor The Black Female Body by Fayemi Shakur
BitchMedia.org, Aug. 2017,"The Girl in the Green Catsuit: Ayana Evans on Using Her Body as Performance Art,"by Evette Dionne
Hyperallergic.com, April 2017, "Parsing A Performance Art Festival in Terms of Labor" by Seph Rodney
Associated Press, Feb 2017,"Barnes Tackles Urban Experience With Person of the Crowd"
The Cut, NYmag.com, "3 Women Changing the Art Game" by Lindsay Peoples
GalleryGurls.net, Dec 2016, "In Conversation with Artist Ayana Evans: Her Womanhood As Performance Art"
SuperSelected.com, May 2016, "Why NY Artist Ayana Evans is Doing Jumping Jacks for Over 2 Hrs In Heels"
HyperAllergic.com, May 2016 "Dangerous Bodies on the Verge of Breaking Down" by Seph Rodney
Madamenoire.com, "Woman Wears Sign Saying She Came Here to Find a Husband," by V. Wells
theroot.com, Aug 2015 Sign of the Times: A Performance Artist’s Creative Approach to Finding a Husband by Demetria Lucas
rapidpulse.org, " They Shoot Horses," by Jennie Klein
SELECTED PRESS
PUBLICATIONS
We Are Here: Visionaries of Color Transforming the Art World by Jasmin Hernandez with forward by Swizz Beats, 2020
Institution as Verb Edited by Elizabeth Lamb, Ayana Evans, Esther Neff and Tsedaye Makonnen, 2020
Volume 11 Friend of the Arts Edited by Thomas Flynn II, 2020
Re-Envisioning The Contemporary Art Cannon: Perspectives in a Global World Edited by Ruth Iskin, 2017
PUBLICATIONS
ADVOCACY & CURATORIAL PROJECTS
C.R.E.A.M X DEMO2024 Power Lunch (2024)
Cash Rules Everything Around Me (C.R.E.A.M): A Career Fair For More Than Just Survival Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn, NY (2022-23)
Slick And Gritty Satellite Fair, Miami, FL (2017)
Your Decolonizing ToolKit (in collaboration with Anna Mikaela Ekstrand) MAW Guru, New York, NY (2016)
Performing the SAT Jamaica Flux, New York, NY (2016)
Dark Diction (co-curator with Social Health Performance Club) JACK, Brooklyn, NY (2015)
Catsuit Gardening The Laundromat Project, Bronx, NY (2015)
Empathy Play (co-curator with Social Health Performance Club) PPL, Brookyln, NY (2014)
Social Health Performance Club (SHPC) (co-founder) Brooklyn, NY (2014)
ADVOCACY & CURATORIAL PROJECTS