Artists – Kymberli Grant

Artist: Harmonia Rosales

At the time I didn't know who the artist was but my first thought was....now this makes sense. It was that moment of wow! This is an art piece I would love to see up close.

Packaging & Shipping Art (16 inches by 20 inches)

Packaging a 16 inch by 20 inch canvas sounds easy to say but with two small children, a husband and working overnights, what should have been a seemingly small task to complete turned into....something much more time consuming and I'm so glad I did some test shipping.

Neptune Thurston – Portrait Painter

It was even discovered that Neptune Thurston taught artist, Gilbert Stuart how to paint heads and faces.**

Chorus Lines, Rhythm & Blues: Artist Archibald J. Motley Jr.

I think I’ve fallen in love with this art piece. Excerpt from Nasher, Motley was 70 years old when he painted the oil on canvas, Hot Rhythm, in 1961. This painting explores one of Motley’s favorite subjects, the jazz age. The artist loved to walk the streets of Bronzeville, a once-thriving neighborhood in Chicago’s South…

“Untitled” New Orleans Series by Gwendolyn Knight, 1941

"Untitled" New Orleans Series by Gwendolyn Knight, 1941 

“Madonna” by Elizabeth Catlett

From an early age I've always been fascinated by the Madonna and child imagery. "Madonna, in Christian art, depiction of the Virgin Mary; the term is usually restricted to those representations that are devotional rather than narrative and that show her in a nonhistorical context and emphasize later doctrinal or sentimental significance. The Madonna is accompanied most often by the infant Christ, [but she can be depicted alone.]" [1]

Introduction to Sande Masks

The Sande Society is a fellowship of women found in West African cultures, which aims at preparing girls for adulthood. [2]

Renee Cox – Artist & Photographer

Renee Cox continues to question society and the roles it gives to blacks and women with her elaborate scenarios and imaginative visuals that offend some and exhilarate others.[2]

Clementine Hunter – Folk Artist

Clementine Hunter is celebrated for her use of bold colors and shapes to narrate plantation life in 19th and 20th century Louisiana as an African American. Clementine Hunter is Louisiana’s most famous female artist, and she is one of the most important folk artists of all time.
Her work can be seen in the Smithsonian Institute, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, the High Museum of Atlanta, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the New York Historical Association, the Oprah Winfrey Collection in Chicago and many other museums and private collections across the country.[1]

Dr. Selma Burke – Sculptor

Some of Burke’s most notable sculptures include Temptation (1938), Despair (1951), Fallen Angel(1958), Mother and Child (1968), and Together (1975). A nine-foot statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. she completed while in her eighties is on display in Marshall Park in Charlotte, North Carolina. She received numerous awards and honors which included three honorary doctorate degrees. In 1979 Burke was recognized by President Jimmy Carter for her contribution to African American art history.[4]

Augusta Savage – Sculptor

In the 1920s Augusta Savage received commissions to create portrait busts of W.E.B. Du Bois and black nationalist Marcus Garvey; both pieces were hailed for their power and dynamism. On the strength of these works and especially the poignant Gamin (1929)—a portrait bust of a streetwise boy and one of Savage’s few extant pieces—she received a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship that enabled her finally to study in Paris in 1929–31.**

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller – Sculptor

Created at the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance, Fuller's sculpture "Ethiopia" is widely considered the first Pan-African American work of art. Fuller studied with Raphaël Collin and was mentored by painter Henry Ossawa Tanner. Her work symbolized a new black identity that was emerging through the Renaissance and represented a pridefulness in African and black heritage and identity

Senga Nengudi – Artist

Senga Nengudi emerged as part of a group of avant-garde African-American artists active in Los Angeles and New York in the 1970s and 1980s.

Artist Loïs Mailou Jones

Loïs Mailou Jones's work was abstract and hard-edged and her impressionist techniques gave way to a richly patterned and brilliantly colored style. She produced work that echoed her pride in her African roots and American ancestry. **** In a career spanning more than 70 years, Loïs Mailou Jones overcame racial and gender prejudices to become a successful and influential painter, designer, and educator.*

Faith Ringgold – Painter, Writer, Speaker, Sculptor & Performance Artist

Since the early 1960s, Faith Ringgold has been known for her story quilts, politically charged paintings and prints, and illustrated children’s books. She has eloquently articulated a critical perspective on American identity through the lenses of the feminist and civil rights movements.***

Dr. Leslie King-Hammond: Artist, Art Historian and Curator

“I always made sure that all those people who thought they weren’t part of the opportunity to participate in the arts could find a way to become part of that experience,” said Leslie King Hammond, PhD, graduate dean emerita and founding director of the Center for Race and Culture at MICA. Her words are realized with the creation of the Leslie King Hammond Graduate Award. *

Valerie Cassel Oliver – Senoir Curator

Valerie Cassel Oliver, senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, has become a powerful force in contemporary art.

Dr. Deborah Willis – Historian of Photography

Dr. Deborah Willis is an artist, author and curator Deborah Willis's art and pioneering research has focused on cultural histories envisioning the black body, women and gender.

Artist Spotlight: Angela Hennessy

Her current project, The School of the Dead, is a program for the decolonization of death and grief through the radical inquiry of aesthetic and social practices that mediate the boundary between the living and the dead.

She leads workshops and lectures nationally. Recent bay area talks and performances include The School of the Dead at CTRL+SHIFT Artists Collective; You’re Going to Die’s When They Died; IDEO’s Reimagine End of Life; Disclose Silence: We See Violence; Dead Black at Nook Gallery.

Artist Spotlight: Alise Eastgate

I am an Oakland based visual artist, focusing in watercolor and acrylic painting. I am also an aspiring digital photographer and ukulele player. I was born in Europe, raised in Louisiana, and shaped by the places I've called home since, including Alabama, Mississippi, New Zealand, California, and the Fiji Islands. I earned my Bachelor degree in Studio Art and Geography from the University of Alabama in 2010. My work is inspired by my activism and my belief that all living beings deserve the right to live, love and be free. I use color and organic shapes to explore these ideas and relationships within overlapping cultures.

Spoken Art: Audacious IAM

Her art is exhibited through words on the page, performance and film in the attempt to transform, dissect and explore the intersection of blackness, queer identity, fragility and being a woman in America and beyond. As a queer black female artist, she has given and hopes to continue to provide her community with a platform for dialogue, social change and transformation through artistic creation.