Voices of the Diaspora: The Artisans Behind the Canvas

Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) was a Cuban artist known for her prints and engravings whose works explored beliefs, rituals, and myths of the Afro-Cuban all-male fraternal Abakuá secret society. She is well known for her use of the collagraphy technique. Much of her work is black and white featuring. Princess Sikan, appears often in her work, as she is the only female figure in the religion. Ayón received her Bachelor of Art in Printmaking from Art Superior Institute in 1991 in Havanna, Cuba

Benny Andrews (1930–2006) was an American painter, printmaker, and activist whose work explored the lives, struggles, and dignity of ordinary people. Born in rural Georgia to a family of sharecroppers, Andrews drew deeply from his upbringing in the segregated American South, developing a visual language that combined expressive figuration with collage and textured surfaces. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he moved to New York in the late 1950s, where he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before establishing himself as a significant voice in postwar American art. Throughout his career, Andrews used painting as a tool for social commentary, addressing themes of poverty, race, labor, incarceration, and civil rights. His compositions often depict workers, prisoners, families, and rural communities, rendered with emotional intensity and psychological depth. Andrews frequently incorporated fabric, paper, and other materials into his canvases, creating sculptural surfaces that emphasized the physical presence and humanity of his subjects. In addition to his studio practice, Andrews was a tireless advocate for artists and cultural equity. In 1969, he co-founded the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), an organization that challenged major museums in New York for their lack of representation of Black artists. He later directed the Visual Arts Program for the National Endowment for the Arts and established influential arts education initiatives, including programs bringing art instruction to incarcerated individuals. Andrews’s work has been exhibited widely and is held in major museum collections across the United States. Today he is recognized as a crucial figure in American figurative painting whose practice merged artistic innovation with sustained political and community engagement.

Betye Saar (1926- ) is an American printmaker and assemblage artist. Her practice seeks to dismantle and interrogate stereotypes around race and femininity. History, mysticism, and memory, are central tenants of her practice.  Saar earned a B.A. in design in 1947 from the University of California, Los Angeles. She took graduate study courses from the California State University, Long Beach, University of Southern California, California State University, Northridge, and the American Film Institute.

Beverly McIver (1962- ) is an American painter. She is known for her self-portraits, where she casts herself as various characters.  Much of her subject matter deals with depression, poverty, illness, death, and the life of her disabled older sister and McIver's role as her caretaker.  McIver received her BA in Painting and Drawing from North Carolina Central University in 1987 and her MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pennsylvania State University in 1992. She received an Honorary Doctorate from North Carolina Central University in 2007. 

Billie Zangewa (1973- ) is a Malawian artist currently based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She creates silk tapestries. Her work considers personal narratives, feminism, and modern life. Using textiles, she pays close attention to the interiority of Black women's lives. Following the birth of her child, her work shifted to Black life broadly homelife and domesticity.  Zangewa received a degree in Fine Arts from Rhodes University, South Africa. 

Binta Ayofemi is an American visual artist. Her work primarily takes the form of architecture and sculpture. She is informed by Afrofuturism and groups such as the Black Panthers and the Black Shakers to reimagine both public and private spaces. One of her goals is to transform otherwise abandoned spaces into meccas for Black culture and art. Ayofemi's work explores the political dimesons of space and occupancy.  

Bisa Butler (1973- ) is an American textile artist, originally trained as a painter.  ⁠Her quilts are vibrant, colorful portraits of historic and contemporary figures. Despite textiles being her medium, her approach is multidisciplinary. The composition of her quilts is informed by photographs and she draws with her thread, adding patterns to the finished quilt top. She uses a mix of Ghanaian fabrics, Nigerian batiks, and South African fabrics. Butler was a high school art teacher for 10 years in the Newark Public Schools and three years at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. Butler received her BFA from Howard University in 1995. She received her MA from Montclair State University in 2005. 

Bony Ramirez (1996- ) is a Dominican artist whose vibrant figures of varying proportions, shades, and composition show insight into his Caribbean roots. Bony’s practice has expanded to include using various objects and materials to create. Ramirez creates “mixed medium portraits” that portray contemporary Caribbean life and the underlying European colonialist history that remains in the psyche of individuals. Ramirez pulls from many inspirations such as Italian mannerism, Renaissance portraiture, and children’s illustrations. 

Bronwyn Katz (1993- ) is a South African sculptor. She is a founding member of iQhiya Collective, a network of young black womxn artists based in Cape Town and Johannesburg

Buhlebezwe Siwani (1987- ) is a South African performance and installation artist. Siwani is interested in the Black female experience in South Africa. Incorporating everyday objects, many of her works highlight the racism and sexism that Black women experience. She titles her works in isiXhosa and isiZulu communicating to the viewer that she is decentering Anglo-centric languages.  Siwani received her BAFA at the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg in 2011 and her MFA at the  Michaelis School of Fine Arts in 2015. 

C. Rose Smith (1995- ) is an American photographer who is interested in photography’s role in constructing identity. Her work subverts social norms as it interrogates history.  Smith received her MFA in Photography & Related Materials from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2024 and her BFA in Photography from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2017. 

Caitlin Cherry (1987- ) is an American artist who works in painting, sculpture, and mixed media. Her work centers the Black female experience through technological inquiry and digital manipulation. Interested in how digital interfaces influence present female identity she draws from art history, race, gender, and economic studies. Cherry's resulting portraits and landscapes are iridescent canvases.    Cherry received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2012. 

Calida Rawles (1976- ) is an American painter. She creates large paintings of Black individuals floating and swimming in water. These scenes gift Black people joy and ease that often is not present. Her work also evokes a sense of mourning, granting the viewers and her subjects a vessel for heavy emotions.  Rawles received a B.A. from Spelman College, Atlanta in 1998 and an M.A. from New York University in 2000. 

Carlos Bunga (1976- ) is a Portuguese sculptor known for his installations out of mass-produced materials, like cardboard, duct tape, and home paint. Bunga is interested in the relationship between the body and space. He investigates architecture and its connection to power structures. His works on paper are closely related to his sculptures and installations. Relationality is an important aspect of his work--doing and undoing, unmaking and remaking micro and macro, investigation and conclusion--are conceptual frameworks he thinks utilize.   Bunga received a BA in Fine Arts from Escola Superior de Arte e Design in 2000.

Carlos Martiel (1989- ) is a Cuban installation and performance artist. He explores racism, immigration, gender, and the legacies of colonialism. With his body as the starting place, he visualizes the ongoing violence that Black people face.  Martiel graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts in 2009. 

Carolyn Mims Lawrence (1940- ) is an American visual artist, teacher, and original member of AfriCOBRA, an artist collective founded in 1968 in Chicago. The group sought to develop a unique aesthetic to empower and uplift Black communities. Her work uses bright greens, yellows, and blues showing positive values such as family unity and social cohesion. Lawrence was one of the artists commissioned for the Wall of Respect in Chicago. She was an art teacher at Kenwood Academy for most of her career. Lawrence felt it was important to inspire the incoming generation of artists.  She received a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s degree in 1968 from the Illinois Institute of Technology. 

Carrie Mae Weems (1953- ) is an American multidisplinary artist working across photographs, text, fabric, audio, digital images, installation, and video. Her work touches on themes of history, identity, and power. Weems finds connections between personal experience and the larger structures and institutions that influence our lives. 

Castera Bazile (b. October 7, 1923 – d. February 27, 1966) was a Haitian painter and muralist acknowledged as one of the foundational figures of the modern Haitian art movement. Born in Marbial (near Jacmel), Haiti, Bazile overcame early hardship to develop a distinctive style marked by bold color, simplified forms, and deep cultural resonance. Working initially as a handyman at the Centre d’Art in Port-au-Prince from 1945, he soon began painting in 1947, and by 1951 was selected among a group of eight artists to produce three major fresco-style murals in the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Port-au-Prince—an iconic achievement in Haitian art.  Bazile’s work features daily life, maternity, poverty, and spiritual themes—combining Catholic devotional imagery with Vodou undercurrents—and demonstrates his mastery of colour contrasts (blues, greens, vermilion) and a lyrical sense of composition.

Chakaia Booker (1953- ) is an American sculptor who creates abstract works for both the gallery and outdoor public spaces. She is known for her abstract tire sculptures. Her practice of using found materials speaks to her environmental interests as a discard, toxic material becomes an object of interest. Her prints suggest an organic form despite their nonrepresentational nature.  Booker received a BA in sociology from Rutgers University in 1976 and an MFA from the City College of New York in 1993. 

Charles Harris (1908-1998) was an American photographer. From 1936-1975, Harris documented life in the Black Pittsburgh neighborhoods for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of America's oldest Black newspapers. He often often celebrities when they visited Pittsburgh, including Harry Belafonte, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Little Richard, and Ray Charles.  In 2001, the Carnegie Museum of Art purchased the negatives and all rights from the artist’s family and continues to shepherd Harris's legacy. 

Chloë Bass (1984- ) is an American conceptual artist working across performance, situation, conversation, publication, and installation. Taking inspiration from the occurrences within daily life, Bass is known for her research into the scales of intimacy in the illusive normality of existence. Bass starts with the mundane, the things we always do as a starting place, questioning its stability. What exists in the space between the familiar and unfamiliar and how we relate is an ongoing question for Bass.  Bass received her BA from Yale University in 2006 and her MFA from Brooklyn College in 2011.  ⁠

Chris Ofili (b. October 10, 1968, Manchester, England) is a British painter and sculptor of Nigerian descent whose richly layered works blend vibrant color, figurative imagery, and unconventional materials—such as glitter, resin and elephant dung—to explore themes of identity, spirituality, race and representation. He emerged as part of the Young British Artists movement in the 1990s and gained international acclaim when he became the first Black (and first painter in over a decade) to win the Turner Prize in 1998. His work challenges the boundaries of painting, collage and sculpture, and situates the Black body and cultural history at the heart of contemporary art discourse.

Clarence James (1991- ) is an American painter and muralist. His work features abstract and figurative forms, referencing his interest in eno-Expressionism and street art. He explores the tension between individual freedom and cultural influence, examining self. Ultimately, he hopes to drive viewers towards positive change.  Clarence received his BBA from Howard University in 2014. 

Claudette Johnson MBE RA (1959- ) is a British artist whose primary medium is drawing. Johnson's large-scale works depict the vulnerability and candidness of her subjects. Additionally, she is a founding member of the Black British Arts Movement.  Johnson studied Fine Art at Wolverhampton Polytechnic.

Clifford Owens (1971- ) is an American photographer, mixed media, performance artist, writer, and curator. He is best known for his spontaneous works centered around the body and includes interactions with the audience. He challenges the conventional making of art through his physically demanding performances. In these performances, he examines African-American history. Owens attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) then transferred to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, from which he graduated with a BFA in 1998. He received his MFA in 2000 from the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. 

Clotilde Jiménez (1990- ) is a multi-disciplinary American artist who works across ceramics, collage, painting, printmaking, and sculpture. His work interrogates race and sexuality, specifically Black queer masculinity. Jiménez's work is a melding of private and public musings referencing historical and contemporary influences.  Jiménez received his BFA in printmaking from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2013 and his MFA from The Slade School of Fine Art in 2018. 

Collen Maswanganyi (b. 1977, Noblehoek, Limpopo, South Africa) is a South African visual artist known for his intricately carved and painted wooden sculptures that explore the intersection of tradition and modern life. Coming from a family of Tsonga woodcarvers, Maswanganyi expands on inherited carving practices by incorporating contemporary narratives, personal symbolism, and social commentary. His expressive figures often depict everyday life, cultural memory, ancestral lineage, and the evolving identity of post-apartheid South Africa, blending craftsmanship with layered storytelling.

Conrad Egyir (1989- ) is a Ghanaian-born, Michigan-based painter. His large-scale surreal works combine West African folklore and domestic scenes. Within this framework he explores themes of triumph, identity, and the collective human spirit. Egyir also uses elements of stamps and passports to trace migration histories.  Egyir received his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 2018 and a BFA from Judson University, Elgin, Illinois in 2015. 

American photographer Consuelo Kanaga (1894–1978) was a pioneering figure in socially conscious and modernist photography. Working across photojournalism and fine art, she is best known for intimate portraits—particularly of African American artists and communities—and empathetic documentary work. Associated with straight photography and the San Francisco camera circle, Kanaga used the camera as a tool for social awareness, dignity, and human connection.

Corinne Smith (1989- ) is an American multidisciplinary artist working in painting and illustration. Smith is inspired by dreams, plant medicine, and color to explore a deeper relationship to self and spiritual realms. They work to connect with ancestors and decolonize ways of knowing. Ultimately, their work centers joy while navigating grief and loneliness.  Smith received a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Michigan. 

Cristiano Mangovo (1982- ) is an Angolan artist. Employing the use of mediums including painting, installation, performance, and more, his work is surreal and expressionistic. Swirling limbs and clothing are reconfigured into new forms. Many of his pieces consider the relationship between humans, plants, and animals. Driven by social and political realities, he critiques corrupt systems.  A recurring motif in his work is double mouths, one restricted by fear and one speaking freely.  Mangovo graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa. 

Crystal Z Campbell (1980- ) is an American sculptor, printmaker, and experimental filmmaker of  Black, Filipinx, and Chinese descent. Campbell's work excavates lesser-known histories and "underloved" stories. They work through and within and the archives omissions, finding complex­ity in public secrets. 

Cydne Jasmin Coleby (1993- ) is a Bahamian interdisciplinary artist working in digital and mixed media. Starting with personal and family photographs and other archival materials, Coleby transcribes their experiences through the visual motifs such as Bahamian Junkanoo and bright, vibrant colors. Processing trauma, she complicates the narrative of a tropical paradise.  Coleby received her associate's degree from the University of the Bahamas in 2013. 

Daniel Morel (1951- ) is a Haitian photographer. He takes pictures of his natal country, capturing culture, history, and people. His photographs have been featured in national and international publications such as The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Wall Street Journal. 

Danielle McKinney (born 1981, Montgomery, Alabama) is an American painter whose intimate, psychologically charged works center Black women in moments of solitude, reflection, and interiority. Working primarily in oil on linen, McKinney creates quiet, atmospheric scenes drawn from memory, personal photographs, and imagined narratives, often depicting women alone in domestic or private spaces. Her paintings resist spectacle, instead foregrounding stillness, vulnerability, and self-possession as forms of power. Through muted palettes, sparse compositions, and deliberate pacing, McKinney reclaims space for Black female interior life beyond stereotype or performance. She earned her BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and internationally. McKinney lives and works in Jersey City, New Jersey.

David Emmanuel Noel (1972- ) is a British painter, illustrator, and designer—much of his work centers on family, relationships, society, and environmental issues. His paintings often feature swirls of vibrant colors highlighting his expressive brushstrokes. 

Dawit Adnew (1973- ) is an Ethiopian painter based in Addis Ababa. He is influenced heavily by his studies of African masks and iconography and his background as a textile designer. Being drawn to beauty and serenity, much of his portraits feature lush, vibrant scenes filled with fruits and flowers.  Adnew studied at the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design, Addis Ababa University. 

Deborah Roberts (1962-) is an artist known for her use of  mixed media. Her work takes the form of social critique, aiming to address beauty standards and stereotypes. Specifically, her art considers women of color and incorporates symbolism and multiple layers to create varied and individual meaning.

Deborah Willis (1948- ) is an American photographer and scholar. Much of her work - both artistic and academic - centers on Black aesthetics and beauty. Willis works closely with the archives, sometimes pulling from personal histories. She is also a quilter, incorporating photographs into her finished quilts.  Willis received her BFA in photography from Philadelphia College of Art in 1975, an MFA in photography from Pratt Institute in 1979, an MA in art history from City College of New York in 1986, and a PhD from the Cultural Studies Program of George Mason University in 2001.

Debra Cartwright (1988- ) is an American painter and printmaker. Her work balances abstraction and figuration. Cartwright explores the relationship between the Black female body and American medical history. She examines how historical systems have influenced present discrepancies.  Cartwright received her BA in Art History from the University of Virginia in 2010 and AA in Communications Design from Parsons School of Design in 2012. She received her MFA from Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts in 2023. 

Derek Fordjour (b. 1974) is an American interdisciplinary artist who works in video, sculpture, and painting. His work features social gatherings and other cultural rituals with figures such as athletes, performers, and crowds. The background of each work is a carefully constructed collage utilizing cardboard, newspaper, and other materials. The varied textures are as dynmanic as the figures that rest on the surface. Fordjour received a BA from Morehouse College and an Ed. M in Arts Education from Harvard University. He received an MFA from Hunter College in New York.  

Derrick Adams (1970- ) is an artist working across painting, sculpture, collage, performance, video, and public art. Much of his work centers on Black joy and leisure. His recognizable style comprises angular and flat bold colors. In 2022, he established Charm City Cultural Cultivation, a non-profit organization to support and encourage underserved communities in Baltimore through events conducted by three entities: The Last Resort Artist Retreat, a residency program that subscribes to the concept of leisure as therapy for the Black creative; The Black Baltimore Digital Database, a collaborative counter-institutional space for collecting, storing, and safekeeping the data of local archival initiatives; and Zora’s Den, an online and in-person community of Black women writers, including a writers’ circle, and a monthly reading series that strive to promote instruction, support, and social engagement.  Adams received his BFA at Pratt Institute and his MFA at Columbia University

Devan Shimoyama (1989- ) is a painter, photographer, and mixed-media artist born and raised in Philadelphia. His colorful, fantastical works explore Black and queer bodies from his perspective. His paintings incorporate materials such as jewels, black glitter, rhinestones, and sequins. These materials point to an inspiration in drag culture and Black culture more broadly. Shimoyama's work uncovers the power of what is underneath the glitter and rhinestones.  Shimoyama earned a BFA from Pennsylvania State University with in Drawing and Painting in 2011 and received his MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University School of Art in 2014.⁠

Devin B. Johnson (1992- ) is an American multidisciplinary artist. He oscillates being representational and abstract work in a meeting of movement and memory. This alludes to the intangibility of Blackness. His work is layered and textured, a process that communicates his interest in reflecting on urban landscapes and temporal reality.  Johnson received his BA in Fine Arts from the California State University of Channel Islands in 2015 and his Master of Fine Arts at Pratt Institute in 2019.  

Devin N. Morris (1986- ) is an American artist who works across assemblage, collage, video, and installation. Morris's work is an exploration of memory situated in surreal landscapes. His work is an exploration of racial and sexual identity. His work is built from improvisation based on the changing surroundings that are reflection on family and space.  He is the founder of 3 Dot Zine. It is a platform to explore new ideas and show the work of Black and Brown people. 

Devorah Perez is an American sculptural and installation artist. She works across painting, sculpture, and installation. Her minimalist work explores abstraction, materiality, and perception. Perez creates works that serve as resistance, pushing beyond any singular limitation, with interactions between space, material, and light.  Perez received her bachelor’s degree from New World School of the Arts in 2016, and her Master of Fine Arts from Florida International University in 2020.

Didier William (1983- ) is a Haitian painter. His large paintings explore the intersection of myth, personal history, and Haitian narratives. Many of the figures in his work have eyes on their entire bodies, resisting classification by either race or gender. He is interested in the spaces diasporaic Black and queer communities occupy and how their identities are formed.  William received his BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2007. He received his MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University School of Art in 2009.

Dineo Seshee Bopape (1981- ) is a South African multidisciplinary artist. She uses natural materials such as bricks, soil, and timber alongside video, sound, and archival images. Her work explores socio-political notions of memory (personal/collective, the known/unknown), narration, and representation as connecting manifestations.  Bopape graduated from De Ateliers in Amsterdam in 2007 and received an MFA at Columbia University in 2010. 

Dominic Chambers (1993- ) is an American painter. Chambers' interest in color foregrounds his practice. He studies art historical methods such as color-field painting and gestural abstraction and literature such as Magical Realism and the writing of W.E.B. Du Bois. His work focuses on race and identity and the need for rest and leisure space.  Chambers received his BFA from Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 2016, and his MFA from Yale University School of Art in 2019.

Dominque White (1993- ) is a British sculptural and performance artist who deals heavily in themes of Afrofuturism, Afro-pessimism, and Hydrarchy. She is deeply interested in the mythology of the ocean and the Black diaspora. Much of her sculptural work incorporates found materials and ships. White is interested in the lives and afterlives of objects as well as the relation of ships to the African diaspora.