About

Elvira Clayton is a storyteller working in various media, including visual and performance art. Anchored in historical research, much of her practice responds to the lives of people who lived under American slavery. She mines slave-related archival collections and documents to uncover hidden histories and stories, which she brings to light through her work. “Through this process, I am honoring my own enslaved ancestors.”


Elvira Clayton (b. 1971, Lafayette, LA) has had solo shows at The A.I.R. Gallery and Open Source Gallery in New York, AEGON Gallery, Centre College, Danville, KY, Fine Arts Gallery, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY, and Riverfront Art Gallery, Yonkers, NY. Her work has been exhibited in group exhibitions throughout the U.S. As a member of The Black Women Artists For Black Lives Matter Performance Group, she has presented performances at The New Museum, NY, Project Row Houses, Houston, TX, and The Brooklyn Museum, NY. Clayton is a 2022–2023 A.I.R. Gallery Fellow and a 2022 Robert Blackburn Studio Immersion Fellow. She has been awarded residencies at Loghaven, The Watermill Center, the Lmcc Workspace program, Women’s Studio Workshop, Residency Unlimited, The Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, and Blue Mountain Center. She has been a Laundromat Project Create Change Fellow and a Commissioned Artist. She is a 2022 Barbara Deming Fund, Money For Women Grant recipient and a four-time recipient of The Manhattan Community Arts Fund Grant. Her work has been featured in The Killens Review, Glasstire, Callaloo Journal, and Artsy.net. She lives in Harlem, New York City.