about
Ella Gant was born in 1956 in Monroe, Wisconsin. She completed a B.S. in Art Education at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and an M.F.A. in Art, with a focus in Photography and Transmedia, at the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently Professor of Art at Hamilton College.
In 2011, Gant was a named Fellow in Digital/Electronic Arts from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), and served as a Digital/Electronic Arts Awards Panelist in 2020 and on the Artists’ Advisory Committee from 2016-2019. Her work is in the collections of the Library of Congress, The Museum of Modern Art/Franklin Furnace/Artist Book Collection, New York University’s (NYU) Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, and Texas Folklife Resources. Her work has been shown at national and international venues including Exit Art, Dixon Place, Joe’s Pub, and Abrons Art Center in New York City; the University of California at Santa Cruz; the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California; Great Hall, Washington, D.C.; and the Berlin, London, Melbourne, Los Angeles, and San Francisco LGBT International film festivals.
Under the name samNella, Gant and musician Sam Pellman (1953-2017) were collaborators, co-teachers, and founders and directors of the Studio for Transmedia Arts and Related Studies at Hamilton College. From the early 2000’s Gant and Pellman created sound and image collaborative performance works. Pellman’s final work lives on in the pitch design for the Tower of Voices sound sculpture in Shanksville, PA commemorating the passengers and crew of United Flight 93.
Beginning in 1989, under the production name Magda & Magda, Gant has also worked with Dr. Kay Turner, award-winning American Folklorist, author, musician, and performance artist. Working under the name homoGenius, Gant was the projection designer and videographer for Turner’s performance works When Gertrude met Susan: A Lesbian Literary Love Fest and Otherwise: Queer Scholarship into Song.
