Stanley Wany

A gallery space with white walls features various art installations. On the left, paper-like materials hang vertically. In the center, a framed artwork is on the wall, and a wood and glass piece stands on the floor. On the right, a textured, brown material hangs from a wooden beam above a circular brown base.

Exhibition view of Stanley Wany. Espaces imprévisibles, 2023, Presented at la Galerie de l’UQAM (November, 2023 - January, 2024). Photo: Galerie de l'UQAM

Photo by: Kwasi Kye

Stanley Wany is a multidisciplinary artist whose work revisits colonial and historical archives to uncover the history of his African-descendant ancestors.

He began his exploration as an editor and creator of experimental graphic novels, examining the non-linearity of storytelling and the unconscious. After a residency in Finland, he transitioned to visual arts, incorporating the historicity of narratives found in popular culture into his research. Through drawing, painting, installation, and experimental graphic novels, he deepens his reflections on popular culture, myths, and the subconscious in relation to the experience of African-descendant individuals in Western society. By experimenting with symbolically charged materials such as coffee, molasses, indigo, and cotton, he embodies the concept of "créolisation" popularized by Édouard Glissant.

In 2025, in partnership with the CIÉCO research and reflection group, he will take part in a research residency on decolonial museology at the Redpath Museum. He recently completed a master’s degree at UQAM and a research-creation residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in Brooklyn.

See more of Stanley Wany's work

A large, textured sculpture hangs from a wooden beam in a gallery space. The sculpture is made of a brown, translucent material with streaks and spots of darker brown, resembling dripping coffee. It hangs above a circular base of dark brown, coffee beans

Voyage à Fonds-des-Nègres, 2023, coffee and polymer medium. As part of the exhibition Espaces imprévisibles, 2023. Photo: Galerie de l'UQAM.

Note: Fonds-des-Nègres is the name of a town in Haiti. Stanley Wany, a Black artist of Caribbean descent, deliberately included it in the title of one of his artworks to highlight the historical and contemporary realities of anti-Black racism, oppression, and resistance. For Wany, this reference is central to his exploration of racial identity, systemic oppression, and the Black diaspora experience.