Biography

Cory D. Perry (b. 1989) is an internationally recognized multimedia and performance folk artist. Perry’s projects consist of quilted, hand-beaded textiles that function as wearable objects for performances. These wearable objects are made from donated textiles, beads, and photographic images that serve to conceal, heal, and protect Black/queer space by conjuring a sacred space for queer Black folks to exist freely. They are a Bachelor of Fine Arts graduate from The University of Arkansas School of Art and attended the Post-baccalaureate program in Sculpture and Museum Research at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Perry received their Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Art, Theory, Practice department at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. They are also a recipient of the Windgate-Lamar Fellowship (2019) and the Sexualities Project at Northwestern University Fellowship (2022). They were an honorary international artist for Chale Wote Performance Art Festival in Accra, Ghana (2019), and A participant artist for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (2023) where they created and performed "QueerBlackSunshine'' a meditative protest on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Perry’s projects have shown at the South Side Community Arts Center (Chicago); Arning Gallery (Houston); Smithsonian Institution (D.C.); Form and Concept Gallery (Santa Fe, NM); KNUST (Accra, Ghana); among many others.