My practice revolves around the theme of ancestral linkages formed through shared experiences in black queer communities. I use print media and sculptural installations to communicate themes of connection and collective memory through repetition and rediscovery over time. I am interested in interrogating the loss between generations of queer people who are often without queer elders to guide them and therefore have an extended adolescence as they are forced to learn how to function in society by repeating the patterns of history.

I employ references from pulp fiction, horror movies, and the bible to create fantastical scenes that speak on concrete experiences in a way that evokes something otherworldly. Print media serves as an accessibility measure as well as an extension of the usage of replication of actions in my work.

Kiara Gilbert (they/them) has predominantly spent their life between North Florida, and Georgia. The artist explores how emotional landscapes are shaped and perceptions of history are misinformed by colonized narratives surrounding the past. Growing up black and queer in the South has given them a reverence for the culture and beliefs that enslaved people cultivated and the ability to center black diasporic perspectives in their life and work. Through the use of print media and sculptural installations, they create scenes that speak on feelings of frustration, love, listlessness, and ancestral loss. They have been a recipient of the Six Creative Grant, the Janice Hartwell Award in Printmaking, a 2019 participant in the Humanity in Action Berlin Fellowship, and a Mint Leap Year Fellow from 2022-2023.