Bay Area conceptual artist April Banks explores the complexities of human desire in work that is both visually captivating and revolting. Free Chocolate, Banks’ 2006 solo-exhibition at Intersection for the Arts (San Francisco, Ca), underscores her recent practices—creating multi-media installations that confront viewers with the contradictions of human desire and ideals of beauty. Combining photography, sound, video and performance, Banks applies her background in architecture in a holistic approach to objects and space. She holds a Master of Science in Environmental Design from Art Center College of Design and a Bachelor of Architecture from Hampton University.

Banks’ installations are the result of deep and immersive research processes. For example, in 2004, she embarked on a three-month trek through West Africa to learn firsthand about the cocoa farms of the region and their relationship to the modern-day chocolate industry. Her resulting body of work, Free Chocolate, a visual and material exposé of the world’s love of chocolate, illustrates the mingled effects of desire, greed, and manipulation; the artist’s overall keen attention to material, texture and form; issues of access and economy; and the complexities of disgust and attraction.

Banks has exhibited in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Minneapolis, Cleveland, and Zurich, Switzerland. She currently lives and works in Oakland, California.