Voices of the Diaspora: The Artisans Behind the Canvas

Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) was an American painter known for his works detailing contemporary Black life and historical figures and moments.  ‍ Jacob Lawrence's first narrative series, "The Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture," 1936–38, was inspired by Lawrence's desire to celebrate black cultural expression and pride. L'Ouverture was born a slave in 1743. He was part of the rebellion in Haiti from its beginnings and rose to become commander-in-chief of the revolutionary army.

James Van Der Zee (1886-1983) was an American photographer. He and Gaynella Greenlee opened their studio, Guarantee Photo Studio, in 1916 in Harlem. He is Van Der Zee began his photography as a young man, documenting life in Lenox, Massachusetts. Through his studio, he documented the emerging Black middle class during the 1920s and 1930s, a period that would later be known as the Harlem Renaissance. Most of his work was standard commercial studio, including weddings, funerals, family groups, teams, clubs, and those who simply wanted a record of themselves. He supplied the props that would be used in his studio. Some of his more famous clients include mong his Marcus Garvey and Countee Cullen.

Jammie Holmes (b. 1984, Thibodaux, Louisiana, USA) is a self-taught painter whose work explores Black life in the Deep South through intimate portraiture, ritual scenes, and symbolic storytelling. Raised in a place marked by the legacies of poverty, racism, and the Thibodaux Massacre, Holmes draws on childhood memory, community, and family to create vivid, emotionally charged canvases that balance realism and abstraction

Jayson Musson (1977- ) is an American artist working across various mediums such as drawing, textile, performance, painting, and music. ⁠Musson has an alter ego, Hennessy Youngman. Through Youngman he explores the hypocrisy of the art world through satire. He is known for his Coogi sweater painting series exploring the relationship "high" art and craft. His works on paper include vibrant colored figures engaging in seems of whimsical folly. Musson received a BFA in photography from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 2011, he completed an MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jean-Claude "Tiga" Garoute (1935-2006) was a Haitian painter and sculptor. His paintings are abstract, often featuring broad brushstrokes and muted colors. Garoute often used the "Solèy Brulé" method in his work, a mixture of ink and acid.  He co-founded the Saint-Solei school, a Haitian art school that focused on naïve painting. 

Jean-Claude "Tiga" Garoute (December 9, 1935 – December 14, 2006) was a Haitian painter and sculptor. Born in Jérémie, Garoute co-founded a museum of ceramic art in Haiti named Poto-Mitan. An abstract painter, he participated in art festivals throughout the world. Tiga and Maud Guerdes Robard founded the Saint-Soleil post-naïve school of Haitian painting. The school was born when they offered farmers in Soisson-La-Montagne, a rural area near Port-au-Prince, drawing and painting materials. Out of the movement came such painters as Levoy Exil, Louisiane Saint Fleurant, St-Jean, and Dieuseul Paul to name a few. The movement drew the eye of French author André Malraux who dedicated a chapter to it in his book L'Intemporel.

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) was an American artist who worked in the Neo-expressionism movement. He first attracted attention for his graffiti under the moniker "SAMO" in New York City. His paintings reference this early interest in graffiti. Other reoccurring motifs are a crown and skeletons. Much of his work address personal frustrations but was inclusive of Black historical figures, including jazz musicians, sports personalities, and writers. 

Jennifer Packer (born 1984, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American painter whose work centers intimacy, vulnerability, and the emotional textures of Black life through portraiture and still life. Working primarily in oil on canvas, Packer creates atmospheric compositions in which figures and floral arrangements emerge from and dissolve into luminous, often spare grounds. Her paintings are marked by gestural brushwork, subdued yet radiant color palettes, and an intentional refusal of hyper-definition. Rather than rendering subjects with photographic clarity, Packer allows forms to blur and bleed, foregrounding feeling over precision. Across her practice, Packer explores themes of grief, tenderness, friendship, queerness, and the politics of representation. Her portraits frequently depict friends, family members, and members of her broader community, positioning painting as an act of care and relational witnessing. The body in her work is neither monumentalized nor sensationalized; instead, it is treated with quiet dignity, occupying space through presence rather than spectacle. Her floral paintings—often associated historically with memorial and decorative traditions—extend these inquiries, becoming meditations on loss, fragility, and the persistence of beauty amid vulnerability. Packer’s work also engages art historical lineages, drawing from traditions of European portraiture, still life, and abstraction while reorienting them through a contemporary Black feminist lens. By destabilizing the boundary between figure and ground, abstraction and representation, she creates a visual language that resists fixed interpretation. In doing so, her paintings challenge dominant narratives about visibility and legibility, insisting that Black interiority need not be fully disclosed to be fully present. Packer received her BFA from Tyler School of Art at Temple University and her MFA from Yale School of Art. She has exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, and her work is held in major institutional collections. She lives and works in New York.

Joana Choumali (1974- ) is an Ivorian photographer whose work focuses on conceptual photography and mixed media and explores issues of identity and diversity of African cultures. Choumali embroiders directly on images completing the act of creating the photographed image with a slow and meditative gesture. Her work explores various themes from ancestral histories told through garments to complex, contradictory notions of femininity, beauty, and body image in contemporary Africa.⁠ Choumali is the first African winner of the Prix Pictet, an annual honor for photography and sustainability, which she won in 2019 for her series Ça Va Aller. 

Jodi Minnis is a Bahamian multidisciplinary artist working across photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and performance. Her practice explores and unpacks tropes of Black, specifically Bahamian, women in culture.  Minnis received her BFA from the University of Tampa in 2019.

John Abe (1956-2024) was a Nigerian photographer. He ran Abi Morocco Photo, a photography studio in Lagos up until 2006 when he retired. 

John Rhoden (1916-2001) was an American sculptor. He created works in bronze, wood, and stone. He created figurative and abstract sculptures. His practice was influenced by his extensive international travel and naturalistic forms.  Rhoden attended Talladega College, Alabama,  New York School of Art, and Columbia University.

Joiri Minaya (1990- ) is a multidisciplinary Dominican artist. Minaya's interest in the body and the colonial gaze manifests through prints, collage, performance, and installation work. decolonization and her personal experiences inform the lens of her work. Further, she aims to destabilize the notion of an imagined tropical identity through her work. Her prints feature women and tropical, floral designs reinforcing the relationship to the female body and "places of paradise".  Minaya received her Associate’s Degrees from La Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales in Santo Domingo in 2009 and Altos de Chavón School of Design in 2011. She received her BFA from Parsons New School for Design in 2013. 

Jonathan Lydon Chase (1989- ) is an American interdisciplinary artist who works in painting, video, works on paper, sound, and sculpture. Chase's work centers on Black queer subjectivity. Their expressionist works reflect the interior and exterior realities of the individuals populating the canvas.  MFA, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA 2013 BFA, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA 

Jordan Casteel (1989- ) is an American figurative painter. Casteel paints portraits of friends, family members, neighbors, and strangers in the Harlem neighborhood and New York more broadly. Her subjects gaze directly at the viewer asserting their vulnerability and humanity.  Casteel received her Bachelor of Arts from Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA in 2011 and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT in 2014. 

Jota Mombaça (1991- ) is a Brazilian interdisciplinary artist who describes their practice as “non-disciplinary”.  Their practice is influenced by poetry, critical theory, and performance. Gender exploration and anti-colonial framing underpin all of her work. Through installation and performance, she explores the relation between opacity and self-preservation in the experience of racialized trans artists in the Global Art World. Mombaça received her Bachelor of Social Sciences from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil in 2013. They received their Master’s in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in 2017. 

Joy Labinjo (1994- ) is a British-Nigerian painter. Her large-scale paintings depict historic and contemporary scenes, taking inspiration from family photos, found photos, and archival materials. She explores her experiences of growing up Black, British, and Nigerian in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Bold colors and flat brushwork compromise her work as she explores race, community, family, identity, and power.  Labinjo received her MFA from The Ruskin School of Art, The University of Oxford in 2022 UK and her BFA from the University of Newcastle in 2017. 

Juan Roberto Diago (1971- ) is a Cuban mixed media artist, incorporating painting, printmaking, and wood into his work. Racial dynamics in Cuba are a large influence in his work. His work highlights topics that are not given much attention in Cuba, with a large emphasis on the transatlantic slave trade. Many of his works feature a singular expressionless silhouette in his retelling of Cuban history from an expansive perspective. He is a leading member of the new Afro-Cuban cultural movement. Diago studied art at San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts in Havanna, Cuba in 1990. 

Juana Valdes (1963- ) is a Cuban multidisciplinary artist who works across ceramics, printmaking, video, and installations. She explores themes such as race, gender, class, and migration in her work. Her practice is an archive of her migration experiences as an Afro-Cuban woman through the lens of material culture. ⁠Her mapping of African, Asian, and European, Caribbean migrations complicates and unfurls histories of colonialism. Valdes has a strong interest in material as well, focused on their associations with ideas of the "feminine" and manual labor. Valdes received her BFA in Sculpture from the Parsons School of Design in 1991 and her MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts New York City in 1993.

Julie Mehretu (1970- ) is an Ethiopian American painter and printmaker who creates large abstract, layered landscapes. Her work explores themes such as colonialism, capitalism, war, global uprising, diaspora, and displacement. Taking inspiration from architecture, music, and, literature her drawings are highly gestural. Recently, she has been interested in the idea that drawing can be an extension of an activist impulse.  Mehretu studied at the University Cheik Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal from 1990-1991. She received her BA from in 1992 and her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1997. 

Kachelle Knowles (1990- ) is a Bahamian artist working on paper that explores gender identity, cultural preservation, and its production, and social relations within the Black community. Black men are typically the subjects in her works.  Knowles received her bachelor’s degree in Illustration at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2017.  

Kandy G Lopez (born 1987, Bayonne, NJ) is a Dominican-American visual artist whose work explores identity, visibility, and the everyday lives of marginalized communities. Working across fiber art, painting, and mixed media, Lopez is known for her large-scale embroidered portraits made from yarn and mesh, which translate painterly techniques into textured textile forms. Her practice centers people from her surrounding communities, celebrating their presence, individuality, and cultural histories. Lopez lives and works in South Florida, where she is also an Associate Professor of Art + Design at Nova Southeastern University. Lopez’s work is rooted in identity, cultural memory, representation, and visibility — especially concerning Afro-Caribbean and diasporic experiences. She centers marginalized individuals in her portraits: people from her community, everyday “real” people, sometimes strangers, often chosen because they carry a distinctive presence or energy. 

Kara Walker (1969- ) is an American artist who explores gender, sexuality, violence, and history through silhouetted figures. She uses drawing, painting, text, shadow puppetry, film, and sculpture to examine the ongoing trauma of enslaved Africans.  Walker received her BFA in Painting/Printmaking at the Atlanta College of Art in 1991 and her MFA in Painting/Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994. 

Katesi Jacqueline Kalange (1995- ) is a Ugandan multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, painting, and performance installation. She uses recycled and upcycled materials to create sustainable sculptures with a community.  Kalange received her Bachelor of Art and Industrial Design from Kyambogo University. 

Keith Piper (1960- ) is a multimedia artist, curator, and researcher.  In the early 1980s, Piper was a founder member of the Blk Art Group a cohort of young artists of African Caribbean descent. They were inspired by the British Black Arts Movement and sought to answer what Black art was and the future for Black artists.  ⁠He established a research-driven approach to his practice prioritizing exploration over an attachment to any particular media. This means he moves from painting to photography to computer technology fairly easily.  Piper received his BA in Fine Art from Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham in 1983. He received his MA in Environmental Media from the Royal College of Art in 1986. He received two honorary doctorates from the University of Wolverhampton and Coventry University in 2002 and 2023 respectively.  ⁠

Kendrick Daye (1987- ) is an American multi-media artist and the creator of the Black Queer Tarot. Daye is interested in exploring Black, queer narratives through his work, most notably known for his collages in both digital and analog formats. Daye's work pulls heavily from Afrofuturusm, imagining a future where Black, queer people are free to express themselves free of fear and judgment. ⁠

Kermit Miller (1973- ) is a Bahamian painter whose works focus on everyday life. His vibrant portraits depict scenes of joy and beauty in daily happenings. 

Kerry James Marshall (1955- ) is an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor. Marshall utilizes a historical approach to his work, engaging with six centuries of Western painting. His figurative works assert Black people into a Western art historical canon. His works often feature subjects with extremely dark skin, an intervention with negative associations with dark skin.  Marshall received his BFA from the Otis Art Institute  in 1978 and later was awarded an honorary doctorate, from the above in 1999. 

Khadija Saye (1992-2017), also known as Ya-Haddy Sisi Sayve, was a Gambian-British photographer and activist. Her photography explores aspects of her Gambian-British identity and mixed-faith background (her mother was Christian, and her father is Muslim). Her photographs situate her between two planes, her Gambian heritage and upbringing in the United Kingdom. Saye’s series, Dwellings: in this Space we Breathe, was shown at the 57th Venice Biennale's Diaspora Pavilion. It was a continuation of Saye’s exploration of her identity and heritage, specifically focused on the migration of Gambian spiritual practices.  Saye received her degree in photography University for the Creative Arts at Farnham and obtained a photography degree in 2013.  

Kofi Ansah (1951-2014) was a Ghanaian fashion designer. He was considered a pioneer in promoting modern African styles and design on the international stage. He founded Artdress, a design and creative concept company. His designs blend Western contemporary design and traditional West African art.  Anash received first-class honours degree in fashion design and distinction in design technology from the Chelsea School of Art in 1979. 

Kristen Woollery is an Afro-Trinidadian painter whose vibrant, bright palette is inspired by her Caribbean heritage. The stylized and geometric form of her subjects is informed by African masks, body paints, and textiles. Woollery's work seeks to honor the strength and perseverance of Black women.  

Kudzanai Chiurai (1981- ) is a Zimbabwean artist. He works across drawings, paintings, and video. His work is a commentary of social and political and social cycles and corruption. He draws from his understanding of history and personal experiences to inform his work. Chiurai was born one year after Zimbabwe gained independence from British rule, therefore his practice largely focuses on cycles of political, economic, and social conflict present in postcolonial societies. Chiurai received his BFA from the University of Pretoria in 2006. 

Kwaku Yaro (1995- ) is a Ghanian artist. His work is multidisciplinary, primarily taking the form of painting and textile-based mixed media. He uses upcycled carrier bags, wax prints and jute sacks in his paintings. This varied material reflects the diverse youth in Ghana. Yaro aims to represent the individuals around him, as well as beauty and fashion through his textile portraiture.  Yaro is a member of the Artemartis collective.

Kwame Brathwaite (January 1, 1938 – April 1, 2023) was an American photographer, cultural activist, and key visual architect of the Black Is Beautiful movement. Born in Brooklyn to Barbadian immigrant parents and raised in the Bronx, Brathwaite used photography as a tool for Black self-definition, political consciousness, and cultural pride. Over the course of his career, he created an expansive visual archive of Black life, style, music, and activism in Harlem, across New York, and throughout the African diaspora.  Brathwaite is especially recognized for helping popularize the phrase “Black Is Beautiful” through his photographs and his collaborations with his brother Elombe Brath, the African Jazz-Art Society and Studios (AJASS), and the Grandassa Models. His images celebrated natural Black beauty, African heritage, and the political power of representation at a time when dominant media largely excluded or distorted Black identity. Through portraits, fashion photographs, and documentation of performances and community events, he helped shape a new visual language of pride and self-possession.  Working across photography, photojournalism, and cultural documentation, Brathwaite photographed musicians, activists, models, and everyday people with an eye toward dignity, elegance, and historical presence. His work chronicled pivotal cultural shifts of the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond, connecting art, politics, and Black internationalism. Today, his photographs are widely recognized for their aesthetic force and historical importance, standing as enduring records of Black style, resistance, and beauty.

Lakela Brown (born 1982, Detroit, MI) is a contemporary sculptor and mixed-media artist whose work celebrates Black culture through bold, tactile forms. Known for her signature plaster reliefs featuring bamboo earrings, rope chains, hair beads, and other iconic symbols of Black style, Brown transforms objects of everyday adornment into monuments of cultural memory. Her work bridges sculpture, printmaking, and collage, often foregrounding motifs linked to 1980s and 1990s hip-hop aesthetics and Black girlhood. Brown’s practice is rooted in honoring the visual language, textures, and materials of the communities that shaped her, translating them into elegant, graphic compositions. She has exhibited at galleries and institutions across the U.S. and internationally, including solo and group exhibitions at ICA San Francisco, Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), Reyes | Finn, and Lisa Yuskavage Studio Projects. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

LaToya Ruby Frazier (1982- ) is an American artist working across photography, video, performance, and installation. The camera is a tool towards social justice and change. Frazier creates her work in collaboration with the communities she works with. Her work documents experiences of postindustrialization, communal history, and workers' rights.  Frazier received her BFA in Photography and Graphic Design from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 2004. She received her MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Performing Arts at Syracuse University in 2007. 

Latoya M. Hobbs, printmaker and painter, makes large-scale portraits of Black women. Hobbs’ work explores ideas of beauty, cultural identity, and womanhood as they relate to women of the African Diaspora.  Hobbs received her B.A. in Painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and her M.F.A. in Printmaking from Purdue University.

Laura Wheeler Waring (1887-1948) was an American painter active during the Harlem Renaissance. She painted mostly portraits, but also created some still-life works. Many of her portraits include prominent figures of the first half of the 20th century, including W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Marian Anderson, and Alma Thomas.  Waring studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, completing her studies in 1914. 

Lauren Halsey (1987- ) is an American artist whose work is grounded in the locality of her Southern California home, Los Angeles. Halsey creates site-specific and standalone installations that are inspired by the people in the immediate environment, paying close attention to the experiences of queer, Black, and working-class people. She critiques gentrification while suggesting creative solution.  Halsey received her MFA from Yale University, New Haven, CT in 2014. She received her BFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA in 2012. 

Lavar Munroe (1982- ) is a Bahamian-American artist who works mostly in mixed media painting, cardboard sculpture, and drawing. He is interested in fables and folklore, particularly parallels between stories of the Bahamas and his travels in Africa. He incorporates glass, newspapers, crocheted and synthetic flowers, feathers, and jewelry into his paintings and sculptures. Munroe's work includes personal, historical, and mythological references and sits between a desire to leave home and the longing that accompanies the journey. Munroe received his MFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2013. In 2007 he received his BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. 

Lawrence Lemaoana (1982- ) is a South African textile artist. He creates embroidered text with political and social texts on kangas. His work explores the intersection of the mass media and people in South African society. He is also interested in deconstructing myths of masculinity. Lemaoana received a BFA from the University of Johannesburg in 2004. 

Le'Andra LeSeur (1989- ) is an American artist working across video, installation, photography, painting, and performance.  LeSeur is interested in Black femininity and feelings of invisibility. She creates work that honors and centers the trauma experienced by Black women. Taking the audience with her she seeks to revel in the pain and joy that exist simultaneously. LeSeur also seeks to highlight Black queer experiences. 

Leasho Johnson (1984- ) is a Jamaican contemporary artist known for his provocative and thought-provoking works that explore themes of gender, sexuality, and Jamaican culture. Johnson's diverse body of work encompasses painting, sculpture, and mixed media, often incorporating elements of popular culture and Jamaican iconography. His bold and innovative approach to art has earned him recognition both locally and internationally, establishing him as a significant voice in the Caribbean art scene. Johnson received his BFA at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in 2009 and his MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020. 

Leilah Babirye (1985- ) is an Ugandan artist based in New York. Known for her abstract sculptures made out of used materials, Babirye's pieces are all “woven, whittled, wielded, burned and burnished”. Her use of discarded materials relates to abasiyazi in Luganda, meaning "rubbish" and is a prerogative to refer to members of the LGBTQIA community. Through material and subject matter, masks, she is asserts that queer identities are not oppositional to African identities.  Babirye studied art at Makerere University in Kampala from 2007 to 2010. 

Leonardo Benzant (1972- ) is a Dominican-American artist with Haitian heritage. He studies Yoruba and Kongo initiation rites to inform his work. Benzant is a multidisciplinary artist using various materials to connect to his African and Caribbean heritage.  Benzant received his BFA from Pratt Institute in 2010.

Leonardo Drew (1961- ) is an American artist who took inspiration for many of his creations from the landfill adjacent to his home in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Drew uses everyday objects and various materials such as wood, mud, paper, iron, and cotton and puts and transforms them. Through burning, oxidation, decay, and weathering, the materials bear little resemblance to where they started. This results in sculptures that strike a delicate balance between chaos and order.  Drew was born in Tallahassee, Florida.  He attended Parsons School of Design in New York and received his BFA from Cooper Union in 1985.  😆😆😆

Lina Iris Viktor (1987-) is a British-Liberian conceptual artist. Her work includes photography, sculpture, painting, and film. She incorporates gilding into her practice to explore the connection between art, prophecy, and spirituality.  Viktor received her BA in film at Sarah Lawrence College and studied photography as continuing education at The School of Visual Arts, in New York. 

Lorna Simpson (1960-) is an American multidisciplinary artist working across photography, collage, and video installations. Her work explores questions about the nature of representation, identity, gender, race, and history. Simpson's work pushes the boundaries of conceptual photography. Simpson received her BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York in 1982 and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego in 1985.

Lorna Ward Napanangka (born 1960, Yuendumu, Northern Territory, Australia) is a Warlpiri artist whose paintings are grounded in ancestral knowledge, Country, and women’s ceremonial narratives. Working within the tradition of Central Desert painting, she translates Dreaming stories—particularly those associated with her mother’s Country—into rhythmic compositions of dots, lines, and layered fields of color. Her work communicates systems of kinship, land stewardship, and spiritual continuity, functioning as both cultural transmission and contemporary abstraction. Napanangka is a senior custodian of Warlpiri knowledge, and her paintings reflect the enduring vitality of Indigenous law, memory, and connection to place.

Lorraine O'Grady (1934-2024) was an American conceptual and performance artist.  In O’Grady’s works across mediums including text, photo-installation, video, and performance, multiple emotions and ideas coexist. She explored cultural constructions - namely race and gender- from a Black woman's viewpoint. Her work rejected binaries in any form.  O'Grady received her BA in economics from Wellesley College in 1956. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa in 1967 from the Iowa Writers Workshop.