1978-present
Works in the Collection
Biography
Vitus Shell was born in 1978 in Monroe, Louisiana. He earned a BFA from Memphis College of Art and an MFA from the University of Mississippi. He has been in residence at the Bemis Center for the Contemporary Arts, Mass MoCA, Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans, Skowhegan School of Art, Tougaloo Art Colony, and Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA. To date, he has exhibited work at a number of universities, museums, and private galleries across the country including The McKenna Museum of African American Art, New Orleans, LA, Gallery Aferro, Newark, NJ, New Orleans Museum of Art, University of Louisiana at Monroe, LA, Philander Smith College, Little Rock, AR, Cue Art Foundation, NYC, Stephen F. Austin University, Nacogdoches, TX, University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, Tennessee Art Commission Gallery, Nashville, TN, and Miami University, Oxford, OH.
Shell has also painted murals for the National Civil Rights Museum’s NBA Pioneers exhibit, Indianola City Pool in Indianola, MS, and Union Parish Elementary School in Farmerville, LA and has been commissioned to do public art by the Memphis UrbanArt Commission. Shell has received numerous grants including the Joan Mitchell MFA Award and Camille Hanks-Cosby Scholarship. As of 2016, Vitus Shell is currently an Adjunct Instructor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and will be in residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in 2018.