Takara Canty

Takara Canty is a Pittsburgh-based visual artist, painter, public art creator, and educator whose work has been shaping communities across the city for over 20 years. As a Visual Arts Director at ACH Clear Pathways, she leads arts programming out of the Kaufmann Program Center in the Hill District–running workshops and creative initiatives that reach participants from all walks of life, across neighborhoods including Homewood, the Hill District, Garfield, and Braddock.

A Pittsburgh CAPA graduate, she was accepted and attended Pennsylvania’s Governors School for the arts and is a classically trained artist. Canty has built her own practice on her own terms–collaborating with George Gist, Therman Statom, James Simion, Darrell Kinsel, and Thomas Agnew, and executing public arts projects with Environmental Charter Intermediate and Middle School, the Homewood Lighthouse Project, Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Weil Elementary school and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. She also works alongside BOOM Concepts and The Legacy Arts Project on ongoing artistic initiatives throughout the city.

In 2024, she was named a Pittsburgh Magazine 40 Under 40 Honoree, and The AGGIE AWARD from Bloomfield Garfield Corporation–recognition that reflects what Pittsburgh’s arts community already knows: Canty is one of the most committed and impactful forces in the city’s cultural landscape, creating space for Black Artists and bringing serious artistic vision to the neighborhoods she calls home.

Photo courtesy of the artist