Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Shoshanna Weinberger received her MFA from Yale School of Art in 2003 and BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995.
Living and working in Newark, NJ, since 2006, Weinberger’s work references her Caribbean-American background, which explores the complexity of heritage and the psychology of peripheral identity. She considers herself a visual anthropologist, cataloguing and surveying these experiences that ultimately question notions of assumed beauty norms and identity through ongoing serial works that result in abstract paintings, drawings, collage, mixed media, and sculptural installations.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in numerous invitational group and solo exhibitions. Weinberger is a five-time participant of the Jamaica Biennial from 2006 to 2017 held in Kingston, Jamaica; and included in the 2013 Martinique Biennale.
Select solo exhibitions include: The Otherness of Strangefruit, Harold B. Lemmerman Gallery, NJCU, Jersey City (2018); Invisible Fruit: Stories of Camouflage from the Periphery, Project for Empty Space (2018); Allegories of the Invisible, Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn (2019); Passing Between the Lines, Long Gallery, Harlem, NYC (2020); and Fragments of Perception, Wave Hill, Bronx, NY (2021).
Select group shows include: Born In Flames, curated by Jasmine Wahi, Bronx Museum (2021); Emancipated Imaginaries, curated by AKAA, Manifestia, Lyon, France (2021); If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now, Wassaic Project, Wassaic, NY (2021); Black Beauty, Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans (2021); Generations, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL (2022); Lux et Veritas, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale (2022-2023); The Alchemists, curated by Seph Rodney and Donovan Johnson, Johnson Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA. (2023); Rupture Co-Curated by Gervais Marsh and Petrina Dacres, 2022 In Focus Fellows group exhibition, Art at a Time Like This, Jamaica Art Society (2023).
A recipient of several awards, residencies, and grants that include: 2014 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant; 2015 Joan Mitchell Center, Artist Residency, New Orleans; 2016 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council of the Arts; 2018 Project for Empty Space, Artist Residency, Newark, NJ; 2019 Dawn Scott Memorial Award, presented by the National Gallery of Jamaica; 2020 Newark Artist Accelerator Grant made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation; 2021 City of Newark Creative Catalyst Fund Grant; 2021, Newark Arts Four Corners Public Art Mural Commission. Recently awarded: 2022 Fellowship from the NJ State Council of the Arts; 2022 McColl Center Artist Residency; 2022 Public Art Commission, New Terminal A, Newark Liberty International Airport; 2022 Nancy Graves Foundation for Visual Artists Grant; 2022 Newark Arts Renewal Grant; 2022-2023 In Focus Fellowship, Jamaica Art Society; 2023 Guttenberg Arts, Summer, Space and Time Artist-in-Residence; and recently unveiled her 2023 Art at Amtrak, Public Art Commission, at NY Penn Station (on view until Jan. 2024). Invited to be an Artist Fellow for the 2023-2024 New Jersey Futures, The Power of Culture in partnership with Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
Held two-year appointment as the 2019-2021 McMillan Stewart Endowed Chair in Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art. At the start of 2022, Weinberger was invited to teach as an Adjunct Professor, at Rutgers University-Newark Campus, Department of Art, Culture and Media.
Public collections include:
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
The Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ
The Sagamore Collection, Miami, FL
Girls Club Collection, Fort Lauderdale, FL
The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL
Davidson College, Davidson, NC
The AC Kingston Collection, Kingston, JA
Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE
Bryn Mawr College Special Collections, PA
Paul Robeson Galleries, The Rutgers University-Newark Collections, NJ