Bio

Minnie Evans (1892 – 1987) was a self-taught Black artist born to rural farmers in North Carolina. As an adult, she worked as a gatekeeper at a public garden, which may explain the striking floral motifs displayed in many of her artworks. Evans claimed that she primarily found inspiration from dreams, and her fervent belief in God also played a central role in her artistic practice. In her own words, “This art that I have put out has come from the nations, I suppose, that might have been destroyed before the flood.… No one knows anything about them, but God has given it to me to bring back into the world.” Evans’s drawings tap into surrealism unconsciously, and they feel free of self-consciousness and self-doubt, as they were made solely for her own enjoyment and use. “Something told me to draw or die,” Evans once stated.

CV

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2023

Death of an Outsider, SHRINE, Los Angeles, CA

2018

Annex, SHRINE, New York, NY