Alayna N. Pernell (b. 1996) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator from Heflin, Alabama. She is currently the Associate Lecturer of Photography and Imaging at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is also a contributing writer for Lenscratch, an online photographic arts publication. In May 2019, she graduated from The University of Alabama where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art with a concentration in Photography and a minor in African American Studies. She received her MFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in May 2021.Pernell’s artistic practice considers the gravity of the mental well-being of Black women concerning the physical and metaphorical spaces they inhabit.
She has provided lectures about her work at various spaces including Texas Tech University, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, The Sheldon, and Syracuse University, among others. Her work has been exhibited in various cities across the United States, including FLXST Contemporary (Chicago, IL), Refraction Gallery (Milwaukee, WI), JKC Gallery (Trenton, NJ), RUSCHWOMAN Gallery (Chicago, IL), Colorado Photographic Arts Center (Denver, CO), Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, MA), among several others. Her work is currently held in private collections at the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Illinois State Museum.
Pernell was named the 2020-2021 recipient of the James Weinstein Memorial Award by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Department of Photography, the 2021 Snider Prize award recipient by the Museum of Contemporary Photography, a 2023 Mary L. Nohl Fellowship Emerging Artist recipient, and a 2024 gener8tor Art x Sherman Phoenix Artist. She was also recognized on the Silver Eye Center of Photography 2022 Silver List, Photolucida’s 2021 Critical Mass Top 50, and a 2021 Lenscratch Student Prize Honorable Mention, among others.
