LEROY JOHNSON
From collaged and painted found materials merged with elements of photography and ceramics, Leroy Johnson (1937-2022) created an eclectic vision of life in his hometown of Philadelphia. Through layered, multi-dimensional portraits of houses, the artist represents loci of family life and community in conceptual assemblages that also confront racism, poverty, and gentrification.
SHAMSIA HASSANI
The first female graffiti artist of Afghanistan. Through her artworks, Shamsia portrays Afghan women in a male dominant society.
Her art gives Afghan women a different face, a face with power, ambitions, and willingness to achieve goals. The woman character used in her artworks portrays a human being who is proud, loud, and can bring positive changes to people’s lives. Artist website
SARANJIT BIRDI
Born in India in 1960, I am now based in Birmingham, UK. Founded on drawing, dance, and architecture, my art embraces a holistic approach reflecting the interconnectedness of art forms.
Works include:
A sculptural fiber artist, using wool to create soft sculptures of portraits that speak to spirituality, history and place in relation to the body.
Inspired by West African masks and Yoruba ritual practices, her work explores the ways in which identity is defined and disrupted. Re-interpreting who can be worshipped, challenging archived history and questioning language around racialized bodies, these felted faces exist repetitively as vessels of stories and ancestral presence as a way of narrating Black stories, experiences and memories.
A contemporary painter and printmaker whose work explores the complex effects of the Civil Rights movement on the everyday life on African Americans. His work is likewise concerned with the tradition of Western painting, and the notion of mastery, authorship, and the erasure of black bodies throughout art history.
KERRY JAMES MARSHALL
An Ethiopian-born American artist known for her large-scale abstract paintings. Blending elements of Abstract Expressionism with Pop Art, her work bears the influence of 20th-century painters, including Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Piet Mondrian.
JULIE MEHRETU
VERONICA RYAN
A Montserrat-born British artist who currently splits her time between New York and the UK.
Ryan is best known for her sculpture that is evocative of shapes, forms and objects from the natural world. Over the years, she has experimented
with scale, material and technique while remaining focused on the interplay
between conflicting opposites: revelation and concealment, container and contained, absence and presence. Her
work sits at the intersection between materiality and
idea, and enquires into the processes by which objects
carry and construct meaning.
An American painter who works mostly as a portraitist depicting people in everyday settings. Her style is simplified realism, involving staged photographs of her subjects. Since 2012, her work has used grisaille to portray skin tones, a choice she describes as intended to challenge conventions about skin colour and race.
JOE OVERSTREET
Over the course of a six-decade career that cut across artistic movements and unflinchingly addressed issues of racism and inequality,
As an African-American man working in a cultural sphere that has long marginalised non-white artists, he helped create exhibiting opportunities for numerous artists of diverse backgrounds at Kenkeleba House, the arts space he cofounded in Manhattan’s East Village in 1974. ArtNews
Overstreet established himself not only as one of the signal painters of postwar American art, but also as a vital organiser.
EBONY PATTERSON
A Jamaican-born visual artist and educator who is known for her large and colourful tapestries created out of various materials such as, glitter, sequins, fabric, toys, beads, faux flowers, jewellery, and other embellishments.
JENNIFER PACKER
A New York based artist who has most often painted the people who surround her, rendering the figures of close friends and classmates from observation as they kick back into couches and armchairs, nestled inside New York apartments and grad-school studios. Altered by textured washes and brilliant hues, their bodies and clothing blend into their environments, becoming one
with the scene
and most truly
at home.
MARK BRADFORD
An American artist, who is best known for his collaged painting works made from materials found on the streets around his studio in Los Angeles. The paper fragments, he believes, ‘act as memory of things pasted and things past. You can peel away the layers of papers and it’s like reading the streets through the signs’.
American and Mexican sculptor and graphic artist best known for her depictions of the Black-American experience in the 20th century, which often focused on the female experience.
ELIZABETH CATLETT
“After rereading all of the post-colonial theory that I studied in school, I thought about how it related to my own experience and the misunderstanding of how appropriation works. I like to think that this “re-collage” aesthetic that runs through a lot of black art has to do with the idea that culture is not static.”
DAVID ALEKHUOGIE
Artist Website
a multi-disciplinary artist who investigates themes of identity, memory, technology, media, and power. He began making photographs while working for various music publications, such as Complex, and has also photographed production materials for record labels such as Warp and Stones Throw.
LETITIA HUCKABY
I am a photographer at heart, each piece starts with an image and progresses from there. The images are printed on cotton fabric, hand-stitched together into traditional African-American quilting patterns and finished as quilts, dresses, sacks or framed quilt tops. I love pushing the boundaries of photography, by using a traditional practice in an untraditional way and hopefully creating a new visual language.
A Nigerian pop artist, graphic designer, illustrator and muralist who was born and raised in northern Nigeria and currently lives and works in Lagos. Chechet is interested in images that circulate in popular culture, focusing on symbols of Nigerian society through a pop art lens. In his recent projects, Chechet explores the faces and characters of northern Nigeria as well as the leaders, icons and images that have shaped Nigeria’s political history.
WILLIAMS
CHECHET
Hyperflux at Retro Africa in Abuja
OSCAR UKONU
A self-taught hyperrealist living and working in Lagos, Nigeria, who explores black identity and pride, as well as ideas surrounding Afro Realism.
Relentless in his meticulous approach to detail, Ukonu bathes his sitters in ethereal light - his dexterity and mastery of the ballpoint pen evident in the careful juxtaposition of broader strokes and intricate finer lines to heighten areas of interest and create an illusion of stark reality. His process is "a practice in time and patience", working approximately 200 to 400 hours on a decently sized piece.
HUMA BHABHA
a Pakistani-American sculptor based
in Poughkeepsie, New York. Known
for her uniquely grotesque, figurative
forms that often appear dissected or
dismembered, Bhabha often uses
found materials in her sculptures, including styrofoam, cork, rubber, paper, wire, and clay. She occasionally incorporates objects given to her by other people into her artwork. Many of these sculptures are also cast in bronze. She is equally prolific in her works on paper, creating vivid pastel drawings, eerie photographic collages, and haunting print editions. Tate
3D Virtual Tour of Exhibition
CHARLES MCGEE
McGee was born to a family of sharecroppers in Clemson, South Carolina in 1924. As a young boy, he picked cotton and noticed nature — how a snake moved, how birds took wing. He said that power of observation and deduction informed his art his whole life. He moved to Detroit when he was 10 years old. His early work was mostly charcoals and paintings and tended to focus on figurative drawings of Black, urban life. During the late 1960s and the 1970s, McGee’s work grew more abstract, often citing Jean Dubuffet as a major influence.
an American artist and educator known for creating paintings, assemblages, huge murals and sculptures.
CHARLES MCGEE
DONALD RODNEY
A leading figure in Britain's BLK Art Group of the 1980s who became recognised as "one of the most innovative and versatile artists of his generation." Rodney's work appropriated images from the mass media, art and popular culture to explore issues of racial identity and racism.
From childhood Rodney suffered from sickle cell anaemia and while he could not escape or conquer the disease he refused to declare himself a victim of it and created work not to draw attention to it but to act as a metaphor to represent the ‘disease’ of apartheid, the ‘disease’ of police brutality and the ‘disease’ of racism that lay at the core of society. Contemporary Art Society
In the House of My Father 1996–7
The House That Jack Built, 1987
NJIDEKA
AKUNYILI
CROSBY
Cassava Garden, 2015
Acrylic, transfers, coloured pencil, charcoal and commemorative fabric on paper.
Mother and Child, 2016
Drawing on art historical, political and personal references, Njideka Akunyili Crosby creates densely layered figurative compositions that represent contemporary experience.
Born in Nigeria, where she lived until the age of sixteen. In 1999 she moved to the United States, where she has remained since that time. Her cultural identity combines strong attachments to the country of her birth and to her adopted home, a hybrid identity that is reflected in her work.
NNENKA
OKORE
When All is Said and Done, 2016. Burlap, wire and dye.
Fluidity, 2019
Clay and rope
Born in Australia and raised in Nigeria, Okore has focused on exploring art processes that are connected to learning, artistic experiences, environmental awareness and sustainable practices through participation.
She has been involved
in numerous socially
engaged art projects
designed to produce an awareness of current environmental issues.
She has used bioplastic
and environmentally friendly materials from food waste to create new works.
ALEXIS PESKINE
Alexis Peskine’s signature works are large-scale mixed media ‘portraits’ of the African diaspora, which are rendered by hammering nails of different gauge, with pin-point accuracy, into wood stained with coffee and mud. By applying gold leaf to the nails he creates breathtaking composite images. He depicts figures that portray strength and perseverance, with energy reminiscent of the spiritually charged Minkisi ‘power figures’ of the Congo Basin. He also produces photography and video works.
Tizita, 2014 Nails, gold leaf and tint on wood
RACHEL ISABEL MUKENDI
There Are So Many Elements Of Myself In Her, 2020
A multidisciplinary artist born in Kinshasa, raised in London. Her practice explores the autonomy of black womanhood and the black experience. She experiments with digital collage, film, and pop culture. Informed by her identity, her works have examined her relationship with the black female body, politics, and nature.
YINKA ILORI
a London based
multidisciplinary
artist of a
British-Nigerian
heritage, who
specialises in
storytelling by fusing his British and Nigerian heritage to tell new stories in contemporary design. He began his practice in 2011 up-cycling vintage furniture, inspired by the traditional Nigerian parables and West African fabrics that surrounded him as a child.
Love Always Wins, Harrow Council
Savant, sculptor and artist. His sculptural specialty is the creation of animal figures, full of life and spirit, which are made with amazing speed, great accuracy in form and artistic beauty.
ALONZO CLEMONS
Three Frolicking Foals
Sledgehammer
KENDARIO LA’PIERRE
A German-born, Mississippi-raised, digital/mixed- media artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, La’Pierre, creates his Afro- surrealist digital works by mixing photography, animation, and digital art.
merely by the strength of a few finishing nails. The artist’s fascination with gridded, serialized imagery, along with surface texture appears throughout her practice. Even in her later, more politically charged work, Pindell reverts to these thematic focuses in order to address social issues of homelessness, AIDs, war, genocide, sexism, xenophobia, and apartheid.
HOWARDENA PINDELL
An artist who often employs lengthy, metaphorical processes of destruction/ reconstruction. Pindell cuts canvases in strips and sews them back together, building up surfaces in elaborate stages. She paints or draws on sheets of paper, punches out dots from the paper using a paper hole punch, drops the dots onto her canvas, and finally squeegees paint through the “stencil” left in the paper from which she had punched the dots. Almost invariably, her paintings are installed unstretched,held to the wall
Untitled, 1972–1973
Autobiography: East/West Gardens #1, 1983
Video Drawings: Boxing
1976
EMMA PREMPEH
A British artist based in London.
“Family and generational continuity is often the subject of Prempeh’s paintings, as relational ties are explored and questioned, through the depiction of her mother and grandmother and their experiences. The search of spirituality enables Prempeh to analyse existential questions that are projected upon her reality;
the fear of
death, memory,
ancestral ties.”
— V.O
curations,
London
NORMAN LEWIS
The Players
American painter who
worked in New York City
creating artwork spanning
five decades. Influenced by
the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance, Lewis began painting in the 1930s and was among the first generation of Abstract Expressionist artists, a movement that began in the 1940s and included such artists as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Lewis did not experience the fame many of his contemporaries did; as the sole African American in the group of abstract painters, he lacked support from both White and African American owned art galleries.
Birds in Flight, 1953
Untitled, 1958
SHINIQUE SMITH
Nobody’s Fool, 2007
Open Secret, 2020
Forgiving Strands, 2016-2018 - Out of Easy Reach exhibition
American visual artist, based in Brooklyn, New York and known for her colourful installation art and paintings that incorporate found textiles and collage materials. She began to include used clothing in her work after reading a New York Times Magazine article about secondhand garments shipped to Africa from thrift stores. She describes her process as a personal one:
"It all begins with emotion, an expression and I allow myself to go on a journey in the making of each work, a journey of associations between object and
colour, between
lyrics and fabric,
Between the
viewer and me."
BETYE
SAAR
Bookmarks in the Pages of Life, 2000, color serigraph
Black Girl’s Window 1969
“There has been an apparent thread in my art that weaves from early prints of the 1960's through later collages and assemblages and ties into the current installations. That thread is a curiosity about the mystical...”
American artist
and educator, renowned for her assemblages that challenge racial stereotypes and for installations featuring mystical themes.
Her works incorporate found objects of all sorts; from those suggesting ritual folk cult to traditional Christianity.
SENGA NENGUDI
An African-American visual artist best known for her abstract sculptures that combine found objects and choreographed performance.
In 1975, following the birth of her son and seeing the changes in her body, Nengudi began her "répondez s'il vous plait" (RSVP) series for which she is best known. Combining her interest in movement and sculpture, Nengudi created abstract sculptures of everyday objects through choreographed sets which were either performed
in front of a live audience or captured on camera.
An American conceptual artist who engages formulas. His work involves drawings, photographic series and video installations, and the work consistently involves the use of systems, predominantly in the form of the grid, often in combination with photography.
CHARLES GAINES
Born in London in 1977 she is best-known for her large-scale, figurative oil paintings. She initially learned to paint by working from life. But changed her approach to painting at an early stage, while studying at Falmouth School of Art, on the Cornish coast. Yiadom-Boakye realised she was less interested in making portraits of people and more in the act of painting itself.
LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE
Condor And The Mole 2011
The Cream And The Taste 2013
Under Song for a Cipher exhibition, 2017
“I learned how to paint from looking at painting and I continue to learn from looking at painting. In that sense, history serves as a resource. But the bigger draw for me is the power that painting can wield across time[...] I work from scrapbooks, I work from images I collect, I work from life a little bit, I seek out the imagery I need. I take photos. All of that is then composed on the canvas.”
LORNA SIMPSON
Appeared, 2019, screenprint on Gessoed fiberglass
Trees, 1999, 20 sheets of Kitakyushu Newsprints
Animations, 2016 Single channel digital animation video, colour, no sound, looped. Duration: 1:08 min.
GLENN LIGON
Double America 2, 2014
Mirror II Drawing #32, 2010. Oil stick and coal dust on paper
Hands, 1996, silkscreen ink and Gesso
A conceptual artist, living and working in New York, whose work explores race, language, desire, sexuality, and identity. He is best known for his text-based paintings, made since the late 1980s, which draw on the writings and speech of diverse figures including Jean Genet, Zora Neale Hurston, Gertrude Stein
and Richard
Pryor.
a Gambian-British photographer. Her photography explored her Gambian-British identity and was exhibited in the Diaspora Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017. Tragically, Khadija died in the fire that engulfed Grenfell Tower in North Kensington on 14 June 2017. She was just 24 years old.
KHADIJA SAYE
“Taking inspiration from the development of portraiture in the 15th century, I wanted to investigate how a portrait could function as a way of announcing one’s piety, virtue, soul, and prosperity. The series was created from a personal need for spiritual grounding after experiencing trauma,” Saye herself described of Dwelling: in this space we breathe as it was exhibited in Venice.
Peitaw, 2017
In this Space we Breathe, 2017
ALTHEA MCNISH
a designer who was
highly influential in the
fields of interior
Design, fashion and textiles and is often credited with introducing bright colour to a drab, post-war Britain.
Born in Trinidad with a kaleidoscope eye for colour, she was the first woman from the West Indies to rise to international prominence in her field.
From pomegranates and hibiscus flowers to palm trees, sunflowers and onions, McNish’s designs brought together natural imagery with her signature vibrant colours. One of McNish’s best selling designs, Golden Harvest, was inspired by a day out in the Essex countryside. Now part of the V&A collections, it sold around the world and launched a glittering career that saw Althea commissioned by the likes of Dior.
Golden Harvest 1959
KADIR NELSON
Distant Summer, 2020
American Uprising, 2020
an award-winning American author and artist based in Los Angeles, California.
Nelson’s figurative paintings and sculptures focus on historical narratives and heroic subjects in American culture and are often informed by the Old Masters like Ingres, Michelangelo, Hopper, and Tanner.
KADIR NELSON
The Major, Bronze, 2018
Safe at Home, 2010
The Queen of Soul, 2018
The Heroes of Sport, 2018
EL ANATSUI
Ink Splash II
a sculptor from Ghana who lives and works in Nigeria. He transforms simple, everyday materials into striking large-scale installations. His work raises questions about ethnic identity by combining traditional African techniques and imagery with abstraction.
Erosion 1992
CYRUS KARIBU
Born in Nairobi, Kenya, where he currently lives and works.
His intricate sculptural works push the boundaries of conventional craftsmanship, sculpture, photography, design and fashion. Kabiru makes reference to both his home in Kenya and to international countries and cities that he travels to.
Kabiru’s practice, which has changed in recent years, includes large scale sculptures, installation and documentary films.
Transformer
Limau
Street Shrine 1: A Notorious Story, 2019
ROBERTO LUGO
Yo Soy Boricua: DNA Study By Pattern, 2019
An American artist,
ceramicist, social
activist, poet, and
Educator born to Puerto
Rican parents. Lugo uses
porcelain as his medium of choice, illuminating its aristocratic surface with imagery of poverty, inequality, and social and racial injustice.
Lugo’s works are multicultural mash-ups, traditional European and Asian porcelain forms and techniques reimagined with a 21st-century street sensibility.
British Journal of Photography article: BLM protests
British Journal of Photography article: Historic Vogue cover
MISAN HARRIMAN
Nigerian born
and educated in
England where
he developed a
life-long love for
the arts. Now a
Photographer, creative director and cultural commentator his strong reportage style and unique eye for narrative has captured the attention of editors and celebrities around the world. Known for documenting historic moments in history, most recently the Black Lives Matter movement in London.
PALESA MONARENG
British illustrator known for her transition from photorealism to animated portraiture.
“A good animated portrait feels like a glimpse into infinity, imitating memories and imprinting on the mind like melody. It’s that window into a suspended reality that I’m currently totally and utterly obsessed with.”
LOIS MAILOU JONES
An influential artist
and teacher during her seven-decade career. Jones was one of the most notable figures to attain notoriety for her art while living as a black expatriate in Paris during the 1930s and 1940s. Her career began in textile design before she decided to focus on fine arts. Jones
looked towards
Africa and the
Caribbean and her
experiences in life
when painting. As a
result, her subjects
were some of the
first paintings by an
African-American
artist to extend
beyond the realm
of portraiture.
Initiation Liberia, 1983
Two African Hairstyles, 1982
Textile patterns
TYLER MITCHELL
Gallery view: “I Can Make You Feel Good” exhibition at The International Center of Photography, New York
A photographer and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, working across many genres to explore and document a new aesthetic of Blackness. Regularly published in avant-garde magazines,
commissioned by prominent fashion houses, and exhibited in top tier institutions.
In 2018 he made history as the first Black photographer to shoot a cover of American Vogue for Beyoncé’s appearance in the September issue.
Page from the book: I Can Make You Feel Good, 2020
FAITH RINGGOLD
An artist, teacher, lecturer and
author of numerous
award-winning children’s books.
Best known for her narrative quilts. Although Faith Ringgold’s art was initially inspired by African art in the 1960’s, it was not until the late 1970’s that she traveled to Nigeria and Ghana to see the rich tradition of masks that have continued to be her greatest influence.
She made her first quilt, Echoes of Harlem, in 1980, in collaboration with her mother, Madame Willi Posey. The quilts were an extension of her tankas from the 1970’s.
Live Q&A with Ringgold
Coming to Jones Road Tanka #3: Martin Luther King, 2010
Groovin High, 1986
CHRIS OFILI
A British Turner Prize-winning painter who is best known for his paintings incorporating elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists. Since 2005, Ofili has been living and working in Trinidad and Tobago, where he currently resides in Port of Spain.
Weaving Magic at The National Gallery
Untitled, 1998
No Woman, No Cry, 1998
YINKA SHONIBARE CBE (RA)
A British-Nigerian artist whose work explores cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism within the contemporary context of globalisation. A hallmark of his art is the brightly coloured Dutch wax fabric he uses.
He works using a variety of mediums such as; painting, sculpture, photography, film and installation.
Wind Sculpture V, 2015
Nelson's Ship in a Bottle 2012
Medusa West, 2015
Black and Gold, 2006
Odile & Odette, 2005, Film Stills
JEAN-
MICHEL BASQUIAT
An american artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent.
Basquiat first achieved fame as part of SAMO, an informal graffiti duo who wrote enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of the lower east side of manhattan during the late 1970s, where rap, punk, and street art combined into early hip-hop music culture
Riding With Death, 1988
Slave Auction 1982
Bird on Money
The Dingoes That Park Their Brains with their Gum, 1988
FRANK BOWLING
A Guyana-born British artist. His paintings relate to Abstract expressionism, Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction.
In 2005 Frank Bowling became the first black British artist elected as a Royal Academician and was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2008 for services to art.
Marcia H Travels, 1970
Mirror, 1964-6
In 1962 Bowling started a discussion group with friends to talk about geometry, architecture and colour. The influence of these interests led to paintings such as Mirror 1964–6, with Bowling beginning to blur the lines between figuration and abstraction. He also looked to popular culture and personal memories, such as his mother’s store, creating integrated images such as Cover Girl 1966. Tate website
Cover Girl 1966
THE SINGH TWINS
Cited as representing ‘the artistic face of Britain’, The Singh Twins are internationally renowned, contemporary, artists whose award winning work explores important issues of social political and cultural debate and re-defines narrow Eurocentric perceptions of art, heritage and identity.
Casualty of War: Portrait of Maharaja Duleep Singh
The Singh Twins: how we freed the last Maharaja from the shackles of empire: Guardian Article
Making Waves
Cited as representing ‘the artistic face of Britain’, The Singh Twins are internationally renowned, contemporary, artists whose award winning work explores important issues of social political and cultural debate and re-defines narrow Eurocentric perceptions of art, heritage and identity.
Maria Callas
THE SINGH TWINS
NHS v Covid-19:Fighting on Two Fronts
Slaves of Fashion exhibition
INDIGO:The Colour of India
AUGUSTA SAVAGE
A sculptor and Art Teacher.
Savage fought for equality for African Americans in the Arts. In 1939 Savage was the first African American woman to open her own art gallery in America – the Salon of Contemporary Negro Art. Devoted to showcasing the work of black artists, 500 people poured into the opening reception, where Savage announced: “We do not ask any special favours as artists because of our race. We only want to present to you our works and ask you to judge them on their merits.”
The Harp, 1939
Gamin, painted plaster, 1929
Guardian Article: Augusta Savage: the extraordinary story of the trailblazing artist
Mixed media artist interested in the realistic representation of the lives of those around him and he captures this in his drawings of charcoal and wash which are on top of newspaper cut outs. Ocom focuses his lens on people in everyday life.
OCOM ADONIAS
Saint Galilaya, Charcoal, wash on newspaper, 2019
Saint ki bela owa new taxi park, 2020
VICTOR EKPUK
A Nigerian-born contemporary artist best known for his exploration of nsibidi “traditional” graphics and writing systems in Nigeria. Ekpuk re-imagines graphic symbols from diverse cultures to form a personal style of mark making that results in the interplay of art and writing.
“The subject matter of my work deals with the human condition explained through themes that are both universal and specific: family, gender, politics, culture and Identity”
State of Beings (Totem)
Shrine to Wisdom
ADEBANJI ALADE
The Spirit of Togetherness, Oil on Canvas, 2018
Vice President the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Author of The Addictive Sketcher, Motivational Speaker, Art TV Presenter on The One Show,
Art Coach, VPROI
Hope IV, Oil on canvas, 2018
Afro Series II, charcoal, drawing, mixed media, 2015
ADEBANJI ALADE
The Life of an Artist
Alade talks through his
sketchbook
Morning Light, St Nicholas Chapel, Ilfracombe, oil on canvas, 2017
BISA
BUTLER
Contemporary textile
artist
Each of Butler's artworks takes over 1000 hours to complete. Using an appliqué technique she patches together many fabric pieces to create her portraits.
You can find more information and
examples of her work here:
https://www.instagram.com/bisabutler/
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019
/02/colorful-quilts-by-bisa-butler/
Wangari Maathai (for TIME
Magazine), Cotton, silk, wool and
velvet quilted and appliqué, 2020
BISA
BUTLER
Asantewa (detail), Quilted and appliquéd cotton, silk, wool, and
Velvet, 2020
DAVID
HAMMONS
Beginning in the late 1960s, he began to use his own body, greasing it, imprinting it on paper, and sprinkling the result with pigment and graphite to make Body Prints. These X-ray-like figures were punctuated with exacting details of skin, hair, clothes, and body parts created by the process of one-to-one transfer. MoMA.org
Untitled (The Embrace), 1975
David Hammons once commented that "outrageously magical things happen when you mess around with a symbol."
For the past 50 years, Hammons has created a vocabulary of symbols from everyday life and messed around with them in the form of prints, drawings, performances, video, found-object sculptures, and paintings. MoMA.org
DAVID
HAMMONS
America the Beautiful, 1968
Orange is the New Black, 2017
Untitled, 1969
LUKAZA
BRANFMAN
-VERISSIMO
Lukaza Branfman- Verissimo
is a queer, Jewish-American, African-Brazilian artist, activist, educator, storyteller & curator
As Bright as Support and Safety
and Care and Trusting, 2018
As Bright as The Complexities of
Blackness, 2018
LUKAZA
BRANFMAN
-VERISSIMO
Say Their Names, Say Their Names Loud, installation view, Guerrero Gallery, 2019
LAUREN
MCKENZIE
NOEL
Contemporary painter
Lauren Mckenzie Noel's work
focuses on diversity. She is
interested in conversations about
race, identity and womanhood.
For Awhile Now, 2019
Sadie, 2020
LAUREN
MCKENZIE
NOEL
Find out more here:
https://www.instagram.com/laurenpierce_designs/
https://www.ladynoeldesigns.com/2018
http://canvascle.com/laurenmckenzie-noel/
Dylan, completed by the artist and her
two sons, 2018
JAMES VAN �DER ZEE�1886-1983
Photographer known for his portraits of black New Yorkers.
A leading figure in Harlem Renaissance.
Self portrait, 1918
Lady with Two Corsages, 1935
Gelatin silver print with hand coloring
Young Girl with Dog, 1921
ADRIAN BRANDON
My work focuses on the Black experience. Through playful day-to-day scenes of the Black community, my work highlights the unique joy, swagger and love that is shared in our community. In addition, much of my work acts to raise awareness to the injustices that the Black community is forced to live with. Unfortunately, much of America has become numb to the loss of Black lives. My goal is to create art that creates an understanding of Black culture, Black love and Black pain so that we can move forward together.
Window series
ADRIAN BRANDON
Stolen Series
David McAtee. 53 years old, 53 minutes of color. Killed by police on June 1st, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky.
Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 7 years old - 7 minutes of color. She was sleeping on her grandmother's couch when police conducted a home raid. After using a flash grenade, Officer Weekley fired one shot killing Aiyana. He claimed there was a struggle with the grandmother which caused his gun to fire. Weekley walked free of both charges including manslaughter and reckless use of firearm. Her family is still dealing with wrongful death lawsuits today, nine years after they lost Aiyana. .
ANGELICA
DASS
Humanae
Project
Mission
Empower global citizens to challenge the myth of race
Vision
Through art and education, eradicate misconceptions on race
Our Movement
Intolerance related to race, religion, and color negatively affects self-esteem, personal achievement, and community relationships--particularly among young persons. Within the classroom, intolerance becomes discrimination, removing one's ability to see value in oneself and the others: it muddies the beauty of diversity that marks authentic education. Humanae empowers global educators to stand against discrimination by creating playful spaces for students and the communities in which they reside to discuss such complex, vital issues.
TED Talk: The beauty of human skin in every colour
BARBARA
WALKER
Vanishing Point Details.
Vanishing Point 5
'VANISHING POINT'
19TH OCTOBER 2018 -
Vanishing Point’, explores the visibility of Black subjects in Western European painting within a British national art collection. As demonstrated throughout Walker established bodies of work, she is interested in the representation of Black people in our public archives and collections. Vanishing Point is an opportunity to explore this interest further, and to focus in particular on Art History and the way it has been shaped by institutions and the art establishment in this country from the late Georgian period to the present day.
Barbara Walker is a British artist based in Birmingham in the UK. Her work is informed by the social, political and cultural realities that affect her life and the lives of those around her.
graphite and coloured pencil on embossed Somerset Satin paper using a Photopolymer Gravure plate.
BARBARA
WALKER
Series - ... I can paint a picture with a pin
2006, digital print media
'LOUDER THAN WORDS'
2006 - 2009
Louder than Words brings together compelling paintings and drawings which consider how we form opinions about people based solely on their appearance. Some of these works specifically explore the motives behind, and the impact of police ‘stop and search’, highlighting and questioning the consequences and repercussions for individuals, including her son, who are often judged by the way they look.
Brighter Future
Diptych, 2006, charcoal and conte on digital image
The Choreo Photolist is a photographic dance to the tune of our turbulent times.
BENJI
REID
Laugh at Gravity
There is dance in everything, but there is no dance without dramatic tension, and there is no image without soul.
JOY
LABINJO
Using a recently rediscovered family photo album as source material, Labinjo depicts intimate scenes of family life: stolen moments before a wedding, an afternoon with an elderly relative, mischievous cousins posing for the camera. Her paintings expand on her British-Nigerian heritage and map a constellation of places and people which extend across generations and geographies, evoking the fashion, hairstyles and interiors of yesteryear and places such as Essex and Lagos, which played an important role in the artist's upbringing.
MING
SMITH
America seen through stars and stripes. New York City. New York. 1976
“My work as a photographer was to record, culturally, the period of time in which I lived — and I recorded it as an artist”
Abidjan Children. 1972, 2003
Beauty. Coney Island. 1976
JEREMY
RODNEY-HALL
The hair appointment
A multifaceted artist from Toronto, Canada (photography, music production, singing) and enjoys creating but loves impacting lives. He has explored the concepts of mental health, love, and community, using art as his vehicle to understand people.
WOW Series video
TIM OKAMURA
A painter who blends graffiti and realism depicting New York City’s diverse inhabitants. Born and raised in Canada, with his background being Newfoundland and Japanese, Okamura focuses his art on a slice of life in the United States that allows him to express his racial identity.
Punk Rawkah, 2014
CARRIE MAE WEEMS
The Kitchen Table Series, 1990
African Jewels, 2009
Considered one of the most influential contemporary American artists, Carrie Mae Weems has investigated family relationships, cultural identity, sexism, class, political systems, and the consequences of power.
SAM GILLIAM
A colour field painter and lyrical abstractionist artist
One On, 1970, acrylic on canvas
Manet, Mixed media print, 1999
He was inspired in making the drapes, he says, by seeing clothes hanging on a line. That is, he very much meant to suggest the down-to-earth presence of objects in the world, resonating with the spaces of ordinary people: “what was most personal to me were the things I saw in my own environment,” he told Artnews. As for scale, freeing the painting from the stretcher would also allow Gilliam to embrace a new kind of vastness.
Black Forest Road, 2011
Death and the Maiden, 2013
Self portrait as Janus 2008
“Painting and painting and painting, endlessly exploring ideas in paint on canvas, always painting my way. Finding that over time I can't see the trees for the paint. Sometimes it’s good to try a new way, a different path, expose oneself to the vagaries of chance - and see the trees again.”
KEHINDE WILEY
Three Girls in a Wood, 2018, oil on linen
Barack Obama, 2018
Rumours of War, 2019, Bronze
British artist Hurvin Anderson is internationally renowned for his vibrant paintings of urban barbershops and lush Caribbean landscapes. Exploring the intertwined themes of memory and place and often imbued with longing, Anderson's work reflects his own experience with shifting notions of cultural identity.
HURVIN ANDERSON
Afrosheen, 2009, Oil on canvas
Untitled (Welcome Series), 2004, Oil on canvas
GLORY
SAMJOLLY
Dear Archives is a Feminist series of portraiture paintings which narrate of Black/ Asian woman in colonial settings. The purpose of this series is to assess the feelings of Black/ Asian women towards embracing their British identity, having been brought up in the United Kingdom, Europe or post-colonial countries.
The Honorable Women of Slayage in their study, Oil and Wallpaper on Linen, 2020
Muholi describes themself as a visual activist. From the early 2000s, they have documented and celebrated the lives of South Africa’s black lesbian, gay, trans, queer and intersex communities.
Muholi turns the camera on themself in the ongoing series Somnyama Ngonyama – translated as ‘Hail the Dark Lioness’. These powerful and reflective images explore themes including labour, racism, Eurocentrism and sexual politics.
ZANELE MUHOLI
Qiniso, The Sails, Durban, 2019
Xiniwe at Cassilhaus, North Carolina, 2016
TEMI COKER
“I was challenged by my friend Magdiel to design a poster a day to enhance my graphic design skills. I took to the challenge and have been designing a poster a day. I'm learning a lot from him and myself during this project.”
A multidisciplinary artist. His mix of vibrant colours and textures come from his upbringing in Nigeria as well as his love for the African Diaspora. His style focuses on evoking emotion through colour, patterns and storytelling.
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DEBORAH ROBERTS
Combining collage with mixed media, Deborah Roberts' figurative works depict the complexity of black subjecthood and explore themes of race, identity and gender politics. Deborah Roberts was born in Austin, Texas, USA in 1962 where she continues to live and work.
KEITH PIPER
A leading contemporary British artist, curator, critic and academic. He was a founder member of the groundbreaking BLK Art Group, an association of black British art students, mostly based in the West Midlands region of the UK
WANGECHI MUTU
A Kenyan- American visual artist known primarily for her painting, sculpture, film and performance work. Born in Kenya, she has lived and established her career in New York for over twenty years.
EMMA AMOS
Amos combined printmaking, painting and textile in her self-referential works, usually on linen, large scale, and unframed. She used acrylic paint, etching, silkscreen, collagraph, photo transfer effects with iron-on fabric, and African textiles
KARA WALKER
An American contemporary painter, silhouettist, print-maker, installation artist, and film-maker who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence, and identity in her work. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes.
CHARLES WHITE
An American artist best known for his incisive, often searing portrayals of the African- American experience throughout history.
After having offers of admission revoked from two institutes on account of his race, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago offered White a full scholarship to attend.
uses drawing and printmaking to create works that explore the reconstruction of identity. In her work, she combines signs and symbols to fabricate a visual language. By fusing this language with oral storytelling, Martin offers other identities and narratives for women of colour.
Night Stands Softly
Quilted Angel 2015
Believing in Kings, 2018
NILUPA YASMIN
A British Bangladeshi Muslim artist and educator. Her work is primarily lens based and she takes a keen interest in the notion of culture, self-identity and anthropology.
Combined with her love for handcraft and photographic explorations, she repeatedly draws upon her own South Asian culture and heritage.
ZOHRA OPOKU
Zohra Opoku is an artist of German and Ghanaian descent based in Accra. She examines the political, historical, cultural, and socio-economic influences in the formation of personal identities, particularly in the context of contemporary Ghana.
PARTOU ZIA
Born in Tehran she came to England in 1970. Partou’s canvases bring a fresh note to the long established tradition of storytelling. She has been inspired by the writing and illustrations of William Blake, and her work explores a personal journey of self-discovery. Through these vibrant, painterly canvases, she draws the viewer into her dream like memory.
THOMAS J PRICE
A multi-disciplinary artist working across the mediums of sculpture, film, photography and performance, is London born and based. His very individual work explores representation in its many forms – in addition to subconscious perceptions embedded into the human psyche.
— ALA CHAMP
Marble Draft Series 2010-2013
Ordinary Men 2019
Photographer born in Accra, Ghana. Worked as a photojournalist for the Daily Graphic and Drum magazine, which led him to London in the 1960s. His varied body of photographic work documents the shift towards modern living as experienced by black people in both Africa and Britain.
JAMES�BARNOR
Mike Eghan, Piccadilly Circus, 1967
Eva, London, 1960’s
Muhammad Ali training,London,1966
RAPHAEL �ALBERT
Photographer born on the Caribbean island of Grenada. After moving to London in the 1950s, he studied photography at Ealing Technical College. Albert then became a freelance photographer working for black British newspapers like West Indian World. He was often employed to take photographs of black British beauty pageants, and in 1974 he established the Miss Teenager and Miss West Indies in Great Britain contests. He remained committed to celebrating the Caribbean communities in his London area throughout his life, often taking home-studio portrait photographs for local people.
The Harder They Come c.1970s
Beauty Salon, 1960-70
A photographer born in Northwest London in 1971, after her parents moved to the city from the Caribbean island
JENNIE BAPTISTE
Pinky, 2001
Roots Manuva
Ragga, bogle left, 1993
of St. Lucia in the 1960s. She graduated from the London College of Communication Bachelor of Arts Photography course in 1994. Her photographs explore fashion and style as expressions of black British identity, often with a focus on music culture. She has photographed prominent hip hop artists such as P. Diddy, Jay Z and Mary J. Blige. Her work has been exhibited internationally and a selection of her photographs were included in the Black British Style exhibition held at the V&A in 2004.
DENNIS MORRIS
Jimmy Cliff
Gavin Rossdale - Bush
A photographer who started his career at an early age. He was 11 years old when one of his photographs was printed on the front page of the Daily Mirror. A camera fanatic since the age of 8, Dennis was known around his East End neighbourhood as Mad Dennis, due to his preference for photography over football.
GISELA TORRES
Bolero Magazine
John Malkovich, YOOX.com
Self Portrait in salt, 2017
Photographic Artist, Educator and Dreamer.
Born in New York City to Cuban parents, Torres was surrounded by a dichotomy of cultures while harboring a fearless need to express herself. Studying film at The School of Visual Arts in NYC left an indelible mark on her approach to still photography: the intent of her images is always to tell a story.
OTHELLO DE’SOUZA-HARTLEY
A visual artist who explores a variety of mediums such as; photography, film, performance, sound, drawing and painting.
Masculinity Project Phase 2: film
Click image for video
Click image for video
The Line Project
Inspired by the mood and themes of classical painting. His unique approach to composition, light and gaze combines to unveil the inner workings of his subjects
Negative Positives: The Guardian Archive, 2007-2015
LUBAINA HIMID
Swallow Hard: The Lancaster Dinner Service, 2007
Installation view Spike Island, Bristol 2017
Fashionable Marriage installation, 2014
2017 Turner Prize winner and Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire.
British artist and curator. Her art focuses on themes of cultural history and reclaiming identities
STEVE MCQUEEN
A British film director, film producer, screenwriter, and video artist. For his 2013 film 12 Years a Slave, a historical drama adaptation of an 1853 slave narrative memoir, he won an Academy Award, BAFTA Award for Best Film, and Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture. For his artwork, McQueen has received the Turner Prize in 1999.
Gravesend, Installation View, 2007
Static 2009 (installation shot), Film, 35 mm, or video, high definition, projection, colour and sound.
35mm colour film transferred to HD digital format, sound, 30 min. 8 sec.
OMAR VICTOR DIOP
Omar Ibn Said,2015
Selma 1965, 2016
A self-taught Senegalese photographer whose conceptually-rich work is in demand around the world. Omar Victor Lives in Dakar, His body of work includes Fine Arts and Fashion Photography as well as Advertising Photography. He enjoys mixing his photography with other forms of art, such as costume design, styling and creative writing.
Fridas, 2013
Marième, 2014
OMAR VICTOR DIOP
Ken Aicha Sy, 2011
Ikhlas Khan, 2015
Embouteillage
Ikhlas Khan, 2015
ALT+SHIFT+EGO, 2013
LAVAR�MUNROE�Born in Nassau, Bahamas, Munroe is an interdisciplinary artist whose work encompasses painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation art, creating hybrid forms that straddle the line between sculpture and painting.
The Redbones, explores global political strife and societal ills including: income disparity, war and racism.
These cultural works straddle the line between painting, sculpture and installation, challenging narratives around survival, loss and trauma. They balance real life issues within a fictional setting.
https://www.jenkinsjohnsongallery.com/artists/38-lavar-munroe/overview/
For she was the Controller of Misery and Happiness, 2016, acrylic, latex house paint,
Bathwater, 2020
dollar bills, staples, blunt, spray paint and acrylic on canvas
and spray paint
on canvas
GORDON PARKS
One of the seminal figures of twentieth century photography.
A humanitarian with a deep commitment to social justice, Parks left behind a body of work that documents many of the most important aspects of American culture from the early 1940s up until his death in 2006, with a focus on race relations, poverty, civil rights, and urban life.
In addition, Parks was also a celebrated composer, author and filmmaker who interacted with many of the most prominent people of his era- from politicians and artists to celebrities and athletes.
Doll Test, New York, 1947
Untitled, Watts, California, 1967
Gordon Parks interview with Charlie Rose, 2000
Gordon Parks | virtual exploration
Live Q&A about Park’s work.
American Gothic, Washington, D.C., 1942
Red Jackson, Harlem, New York, 1948
Gordon Parks, Self-Portrait, 1941
ELLEN GALLAGHER
Wiglet from DeLuxe, 2004
An American artist working with a variety of media, including painting, works on paper, film and video. Some of her pieces refer to issues of race, and may combine formality with racial stereotypes and depict "ordering principles" society imposes.
Painting Beyond Painting: Ep 10
Bird in Hand, 2006
SONIA BOYCE
A British Afro-Caribbean artist, living and working in London. She is a Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London. Boyce's research interests explore art as a social practice and the critical and contextual debates that arise from this area of study.
Lay Back, Keep Quiet and Think of What Made Britain So Great, 1986
She Ain’t Holding Them Up, She’s Holding On (Some English Rose), 1986
I'm With Her Too, 2019
Missionary Position I, 1985
RESOURCES
AND WIDER READING
Radio 4 Interview on the language of power and inequality in education and leadership https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000l0s0
Black and British: A Forgotten History, BBC documentary https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b082x0h6/black-and-british-a-forgotten-history
New Art Exchange - Largest UK gallery dedicated to culturally diverse contemporary visual arts
Nataal - Global media brand celebrating contemporary African fashion, music, art and society
Autograph Gallery - https://autograph.org.uk/exhibitions
October Gallery - http://www.octobergallery.co.uk/
RESOURCES
AND WIDER READING
Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience
Working in partnership with Black Cultural Archives, V&A identified and acquired photographs taken by black photographers, or which document the lives of black people in Britain, taken between the 1950s – 90s.
Art in Color is a video series created by curator and culture writer Jaelynn highlighting the works and lives of contemporary artists of color.
The Artists Information Company. A selection of features about BAME artists - https://www.a-n.co.uk/tag/bame/
GET UP, STAND UP NOW: Exhibition of work by generations of black creative pioneers.
200+ Black creators: Links to profiles, websites and Instagram.
RESOURCES
AND WIDER READING
https://africanah.org/: Arena for Contemporary African, African-American and Caribbean Art
Black Creatives Matter: Document created by Illinois Art Education Association
See in Black project on Instagram: A collective of Black photographers who uplift and invest in Black visibility.
One World Posters - https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/one-world-posters
RESOURCES
RESOURCES
AND WIDER READING
BLACK LIVES MATTER TOPS 2020 EDITION OF ART REVIEW’S POWER 100
While this year the COVID-19 pandemic has tested the resilience and solidarity of societies across the globe, and the environmental crisis continues to go unmanaged, it is the long-standing issues concerning racial justice and equity that have come to dominate public consciousness.