Shaunté Gates (b. 1979) lives and works in Washington, D.C. He studied at Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Bowie State University. Gates trained in traditional oil painting and representational portraiture early in his career. His subsequent experiences working in the television industry, editing video and creating motion graphics, along with his interest in the writings of social theorists including Edward Bernays, Guy Debord and Joseph Campbell, caused a profound shift in his artistic practice. His recent work employs a multidisciplinary approach, layering photography, painting, found texts and portraits, to create dreamlike landscapes that explore the labyrinthine social constructs of race, class and psychogeographical spaces people inhabit and operate within. Gates is a participating artist in the Smithsonian Institution’s “Men of Change” four-year traveling exhibition spanning ten museums, including the International African American Museum in Charleston, SC, California African American Museum, Cincinnati Underground Railroad Museum and Washington State History Museum (2019-23). His work has also been featured extensively in exhibitions in the Washington D.C. region, including STABLE (2021); American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center (2016); Honfluer Gallery (2015); 39th Street Gallery (2014); Parish Gallery (2011); The Graham Collection (2006); and Howard University (2004). He has been awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Grant (2022) and residencies with The Nicholson Project (2023), The Kennedy Center (2019) and Washington Project for the Arts (2018; 2017). Gates has work in esteemed private collections and institutions such as the Studio Museum in Harlem and Munson, Utica, NY. He has completed many public art commissions including Transcending, a painting commemorating the 140th anniversary of Howard University School of Law.