Pamela Council (born 1986) is an American multidisciplinary artist and educator. They work to produce sculpture, textiles, print-based media and performance art. Their work addresses Black American culture, and often features humor.

Early life and education

Pamela Council was born in 1986 in

Southampton, New York Southampton, officially the Town of Southampton, is a town in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, partly on the South Fork of Long Island. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the town had a population of 69,036. Southampton is included in the stret ...

; into a Black family. She completed her secondary education at Stuyvesant High School, from 2000 to 2003. Council attended

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

, from 2003 to 2007, where she received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

and majored in Studio Art and minored in Mathematics. She attended

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, from 2012 to 2014, where she received a Master of Fine Arts, and graduated with honors. She was a teaching assistant for the majority of her time at Columbia, teaching both graduate and undergraduate classes in sculpture and 3D building.

Art work

Council works primarily in sculpture, textiles, print-based media and performance art. Her work has been commissioned and exhibited through the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Studio Museum in Harlem,

Williams College Museum of Art The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is a college-affiliated art museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is located on the campus of Williams College, and is close to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Clark Ar ...

, Southampton Historical Museum and Kianga Ellis Projects among others. She completed a residency at MANA BSMT in 2016, and recently participated in the collective, ''Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter''. Council's art reflects the complex relationships of cultural and individual identities by immersing the viewer in a "sensory experience". She draws on inspiration from Americana, physical beauty, and consumerism, juxtaposing her own materials with mass-produced objects.

Notable exhibits

''Flo-Jo World Record Nails'' (2012)

''Flo-Jo World Record Nails'' (2012) incorporates replica of 2000 acrylic fingernails (as well as nail polish, rhinestones) in the shape of a 200m running track (at 1:100 scale), inspired by the nails

Florence Griffith Joyner Florence Delorez Griffith Joyner (born Florence Delorez Griffith; December 21, 1959 – September 21, 1998), also known as Flo-Jo, was an American track and field athlete. She set world records in 1988 for the 100 m and 200 m. During the late ...

wore during the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and commonly known as Seoul 1988 ( ko, 서울 1988, Seoul Cheon gubaek palsip-pal), was an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October ...

when she set the 200m world record. Council explores themes of feminism, beauty, and consumerism in this piece, identifying the contradictory ties Black women have to physical beauty and the spending large sums of money on beauty products while earning less money in the United States.

''A Fountain for Survivors'' (2021)

''A Fountain for Survivors'' (2021) is an 18-foot tall fountain inside of a dome and is covered with more than 350,000 acrylic finger nails. This work was on display in Times Square in New York City in 2021 as a tribute to the survivors of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Council, Pamela Living people American women artists American multimedia artists Columbia University School of the Arts alumni People from Southampton (town), New York Stuyvesant High School alumni Williams College alumni 1986 births African-American women artists 21st-century American women