Shaunté Gates was born in 1979 in Washington, D.C., where he lives and works. He studied at Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Bowie State University. Gates is trained in oil painting and produced representational portraits early in his career. His recent work across mixed media collage and video uses found materials to subvert landscapes with architecture embedded with cultural symbologies and caste categorizations, probing our psychological experiences of the city and illuminating forgotten, discarded or marginalized aspects of the urban environment. Gates is a participating artist in the Smithsonian Institution’s “Men of Change” four-year traveling exhibition spanning ten museums, including California African American Museum, Cincinnati Underground Railroad Museum and Washington State History Museum (2019-2022). His work has also been featured extensively in exhibitions in the Washington region, including STABLE (2021); American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center (2016); Honfluer Gallery (2015); 39th Street Gallery (2014); Parish Gallery (2011); The Graham Collection (2006); and Howard University (2004). He has been awarded residencies with The Kennedy Center and Washington Project for the Arts (WPA). Gates has work in esteemed private collections and institutions such as the Studio Museum in Harlem and Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY. He has completed many public art commissions throughout D.C. schools, including Transcending, a painting commemorating the 140th anniversary of Howard University School of Law.