karin turner – karinsArt

karin turner – karinsArt

KarinsArt takes Her Joy seriously, Yours too!
Her ART is all about JOY! Having it , Getting it, Feeling it, Sharing it!
Her artwork is a vehicle that conveys positive a message that requires introspection rather than an outward revolution.
Her JOYful images feature a self-biographical woman with natural hair, curves & watermelon.
She incorporates bright colors, feminine beauty and strength with suggestive titles and words, that urge the viewer to BE in their own Life..! The watermelon is a metaphor for Life! Some days are good- really good...some not...But we have to actively participate in our lives to Live Abundantly. Crack Open the Melon!
Now more than ever, there is a universal need for this abundantly buoyant practice of JOY... Particularly amongst people of color.

She takes HerJoy seriously, Yours too!

h2omelon woman
The subject matter is JOY. My goal is to facilitate a sense of JOY to the viewer, as a result of engaging with my art piece, or through self-reflection on their own personal experiences.

Mimi Tempestt

Mimi Tempestt

Mimi Tempestt (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and daughter of California. She has a MA in Literature from Mills College, and is currently a doctoral student in the Creative/Critical PhD in Literature at UC Santa Cruz. Her first book, the monumental misrememberings, is published with Co-Conspirator Press//The Feminist Center for Creative Work (2020). She was chosen as a finalist in the Creative Nonfiction Prize for Indiana Review in 2020, and is a creative fellow at The Ruby in San Francisco. She was selected for participation in the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices & writers in 2021. Her works can be found in Foglifter, Apogee Journal, Interim Poetics, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.
https://spark.adobe.com/page/pPXmIBhFr2Fer/

Reoccurring patterns and shapes emerge in my forms. One is the cross, that for me symbolizes peace. The shape represents the crossroad figure who becomes the place of struggles for Africans in American because the binary construct demands one give up one’s cultural identity for the possibility of belonging. However, within Yoruba spiritual practice, the cross is God. The Kalunga, line establishes a threshold or boundary between the world of the living and the dead associated through bodies of water, like the Atlantic Ocean. Triangles are also embedded in my work. These 3 sides or 3 corresponding faces create multiple possibilities of existence through a prism, which gives me glimpses into sacred geometry, where I attempt to unify something broken, something lost. The metaphysics of my experience is exemplified by the art piece, “Grandson, Mureed, the Seeker” an ode to my grandson, who is the third generation with the same first name as He represents the tri-or trinity or completion. His life experiences have already indicated a shift in reality.

Karen Seneferu

Karen Seneferu

Karen Seneferu is a mix media artist whose work challenges the idea that beauty exist outside of one’s cultural reality. Her work has been exhibited at the Oakland Museum, The California African American Museum, Yerba Buena Center, Skirball Museum, Tuft’s University Museum, and MOAD. Seneferu is also the founder and Artistic Director of the exhibit The Black Woman Is God, which has change the artistic and cultural landscape of California art.

Lakiba Pittman

Lakiba Pittman

Lakiba Pittman is an educator and creative artist. She is a Lecturer at Menlo College and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Psychology with a specialization in Consciousness, Spirituality, and Integrated Health. Her first book, Bread Crumbs from the Soul – Finding Your Way Back Home, features her original art, poetry and autobiographical reflections. She has recorded with John Santos & the Machete Ensemble, the Sons & Daughters of Lite, and was a featured dancer and singer with Malonga Casquelourd’s Congolese Music and Dance Ensemble, “Fua Dia Congo.” Lakiba also performed at the 50th Anniversary of the Black Arts Movement with the Poet’s Choir & Arkestra. In 2020, Lakiba was a featured healer presenting “Medicine for Self-Care, Love and Acceptance,” for Street Dance Activism for Global Dance Meditation for Black Liberation. She was also an Invited Oral Historian for the Institute for Diversity in the Arts for Stanford’s University Committee on Black Performing Arts. Lakiba was a featured poet for the Kickoff of the Poet Open Mic Series for the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. She is a senior certified instructor and facilitator of workshops with Stanford’s Center for Compassion & Altruism Research & Education, The Compassion Institute, and Healing Together. Her art has been featured in The Black Woman is God art exhibits held at SomARTS, and the African American Art & Culture Complex; both in San Francisco, California. During 2021, she was also one of the artists featured in the LaLuSa Online Gallery.

Lakiba has created (and continues to add to) a body of work she calls "Ancestral Images" that represent her spiritual connection to the ancestors. They come through as mask-like, and mandala-inspired Spirit Beings. As with the power of mandalas, her art draws in the eye, heart, and mind (of the viewer) in conscious and subconscious ways with messages revealed at the soul level. It is intentional that this some from this body of work are included in her book "Bread Crumbs from The Soul... Finding Your Way Back Home" because in an unspoken - yet palpable and visceral way, in the viewing of them, they help to guide one back home. Where is home? Where you know yourself, where you feel yourself, where you sense your identity, where you know yourself as God knows you ... as God. It's important to have art that speaks to the inner core as well as to the outer eye; art that provokes, or tells a story, or opens a heart, or taps loudly or softly on the brain - art that reminds you of who you are, and what you are and why you are ... art that inspires you to be all that you are and art that causes you to remember.

Coco Peila

Coco Peila

Coco Peila is a Hip Hop & Afro-Soul/alt-R&B Artist. The MC, singer, songwriter, producer, and cultural organizer has worked with young people for over 15 years developing curriculum & programs and facilitating Rap, Songwriting, & Poetry workshops alongside sharpening her musical craft. While most recently serving as the Director of Hip Hop & Climate Justice at Youth Vs. Apocalypse (YVA), a youth-driven Climate Justice Oakland-based organization, she developed a cutting edge “Hip Hop & Climate Justice” department, organizing framework, and accompanying programming. Her Hip Hop & Climate Justice work has been highlighted at The Kennedy Center, in The New Yorker, as well at Stanford and Yale. She and collaborator Hazel Rose branched out of The Bay in 2020 to work with Variety Magazine & The African American Film Critics Association to develop & launch The Micheaux Project curriculum (now in its third iteration) for African American students at LA’s renowned L.A.C.E.S. academy.
Miss Peila has shared stages with acclaimed artists and leaders Talib Kweli, Zion I, Ledisi, The Pharcyde, President Obama, and others. Her music has been featured on KMEL, by the Museum of African Diaspora, and was recognized in the East Bay Express' "Best Local Hip Hop" and by Hip Hop historian Davey D's "Artists to Watch" lists. She’s executive produced all her projects and for artists and organizations alike. In 2020 Coco was thrilled to get the opportunity to executive produce the cypher song, God Code, for The Black Woman Is God featuring RyanNicole, MADlines, Shy’an G, Talia Taylor, & herself.
cocopeila.com

The Pretty Heist is an Audio-Visual media campaign and exhibit which aims to redistribute the wealth and power of beauty throughout the Black Girl Magic diaspora. The Pretty Girls song and music video and Pretty Heist interview series are centered around Black Women & Girls’ liberation and addressing the impacts of sexism, anti-black racism, white supremacy, and the beautification industry on our: lives, perception of ourselves and each other, sense of worth, perception of beauty, relationships with one another, and access to resources. The campaign & exhibit spotlights black women and girls and provides information about how to support the work we’re doing in our communities and the world.

It’s a Black female heist on the beautification industry and on ‘beauty’ as we’ve been trained to perceive it. Under capitalism beauty becomes a commodity, requiring money to access it, set up as an exclusive club. In order to get in we’ve had to lighten our skin, alter our bodies and hair, purchase clothes, shoes, hair, nails, eyelashes, make up, etc. In this exhibit, we crash the party, so that all women have access to the wealth of the Truth, that we are all worthy of reverence and the opportunity to revel in our beauty. We are making ourselves the standard of beauty and taking back what is already ours, the knowledge and understanding that each and every way that we exist and present as Black Women & Girls is phenomenal, miraculous, and perfect. We are entitled access to visual narratives that reflect and articulate this reality.

Taylor “Made” Mosley

Taylor “Made” Mosley

Taylor “Made” Mosley is an Oakland-born and Bay Area-raised producer whose specialty is making punchy, visceral content that incites audiences to partake and engage with the world. She is interested in creating new narratives in the Black community which centers Black voices and diversity. A content creator for seven years, she has worked with various municipal, non-profit, and artist communities throughout the SF Bay Area. She is now turning to directing and writing screenplays that tell the stories of the people, spaces, and places from her childhood home.

No Justice, No Peace! Dancers Telice @tuuhleace and Carmu The Muu (@wavymuu) dance to commemorate the names of those fallen to police brutality and prejudice. Directed by Taylor "Made" Mosley.

Shonna McDaniels

Shonna McDaniels

As a working artist in Sacramento for more than 30 years, Shonna McDaniels has become a force to be reckoned with!
She has racked up honors from being selected as one of the Wide Open Walls muralists, to being a recipient of a grant from the Black Artist Foundry, to being named as one of Sen. Richard Pan’s “Unsung Heroes”, to being named as the Sacramento Kings Crown Royal ‘Culture Creator” during Black Artists Month this year, to her most recent achievement - being a recipient of a grant from the Sacramento Office of Arts and Culture in create a community mural – whew!
And that string of honors and achievements is in addition to her being the founder of the Sojourner Truth Museum, a museum founded in 1996 which depicts the history of Blacks in the U.S. and features outstanding Black figures from all aspects of American life to serve as a point of pride for the 12,000 youth that have visited the museum.
“I’ve been through a lot of trials and tribulations as an African-American artist just not being able to have a seat at the table,” she says. “But I got to do what I wanted to do. My vision came true. I got to have my seat at the table. It was just a very empowering experience.”
https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/shonna-mcdaniels

Shonna's project statement is called for the Love of Black Women.
Shonna's depiction of Black Women allows one so see the incredible strength that allows the Black Woman to always rise to the occasion. Shonna, alludes to this fact with every brush stroke that the Black Woman Is a force to be reckoned with.

Ajuan Mance

Ajuan Mance

Ajuan Mance is a Professor of English at Mills College in Oakland, California and a lifelong artist and writer. In both her scholarly writing and her visual art, Ajuan explores the complexities of race, gender, and identity. She has shown her work at exhibitions and festivals from the Bay Area to Brooklyn. Ajuan’s illustrations and comics have appeared in several anthologies, including, most recently, Drawing Power, from Abrams Press, winner of the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Anthology; Menopause: A Comic Treatment, winner of the 2021 Eisner Award for Best Anthology; She Votes, from Chronicle Books; COVID Chronicles: A Comics Anthology, from Penn State University Press, and others. Her work has also appeared in a number of digital and print media outlets, including, most recently, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Women’s Review of Books, Publisher’s Weekly.com, the NewYorkTimes.com, NewYorker.com, and Literature and Medicine.

Ajuan Mance is a professor of African American literature at Mills College and a lifelong artist and writer. In Ajuan's work as a teacher and scholar of U.S. Black literature and literary history, she focuses on bringing to light those Black lives and legacies that have been overlooked. These same interests inform her work as an artist. Ajuan is especially interested in the ways that telling the stories of the celebrations, struggles, actions, and accomplishments of Black communities and individuals can transform how people of all ethnicities experience themselves and the world around them. Ajuan's portraits are informed by the sights, sounds, and sensations stored up over her years in Black artist, academic, and activist communities. She embraces bright, audacious, and unexpected colors as a way to move beyond entrenched stereotypes to create images that reflect the wonderful complexity of Black lives.