UTĒ PETIT

Utē Petit (b. 1995, Southfield, Michigan) is a New Orleans-based artist whose work explores Black-Indigenous land-based traditions and the creation of 'Ailanthaland,' a free Black nation of heavenly beings conceptualized using charcoal and graphite drawings, quilts, installations, farming, and cooking.

Utē specializes in textile practices, incorporating woven, quilted, and hand-printed fabrics, along with drawing, painting, and collage. Her practice partners with the Earth, incorporating land stewardship into the process. Utē's ancestry as a quilter, educator, and farmer informs her work, as does her upbringing on farms across the globe. She is currently stewarding her great-grandmother's and three neighbors' lots in New Orleans as part of her quest to rematriate family land stolen by the state of Louisiana. Through her work, Utē seeks to represent a nation divested from white-imposed societal constructs and committed to the self-determination of all beings.

She was the winner of the third annual Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists (2022) and recipient of the Marsha P. Johnson Starlight Fellowship (2023). She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (Providence) in 2018. Her work has been included in exhibitions at New Orleans African American Museum (New Orleans), Oakland Avenue Urban Farm (Detroit), and Library Street Collective (Detroit). Loyal Gallery, Swivel Gallery. She’s represented by Swivel Gallery.