Diamela

Diamela

Diamela Cutiño is a photographer from Havana, Cuba. Her art is known for its unique way of capturing movement, whether social, political, spiritual, or physical. Diamela is most known for her work documenting black culture in Cuba including the Lukumi religion, Hip Hop, and Jazz. Now Diamela lives in the Bay Area documenting the AfroAmerican Womxn history.

Is a long journal representing black people in my images first in my Country Cuba since 90s and now in US. Every capture with my lens bring me the essence of seeing each reality in that moment and see the soul in every image. The message on my photography is teach each viewer to learn and respect cultures and this message can stay for the new generations to create a better world .

Abayomi Anli

Abayomi Anli

Abayomi is an artist and educator that currently resides in Oakland, California. She utilizes textiles, public art, and painting to inquire about Afro-Indigenous traditional ways of being and visualizing Black futures grounded in healing. Abayomi is proud to be a member and organizer for the Aerosoul collective based in West Oakland. She holds a B.A. degree from Mills College in African Decoloniality in Art & History. Through her art, she aims to share and preserve Black & Black Native history in art.

“Transformation” explores how African & Afro-Native people have been impacted by colonialism, forced removal of ancestral lands, and enslavement. Engaging with illustrations Abayomi visualizes connection with ancestral homelands, water, ancestral cosmologies, and mythologies. Through connecting with traditional ways of creating and embodying Afro-Indigenous mythologies, allows the opportunity to transcend time, space and visualize the stories that have been washed out in the framework of America.

Marissa Arterberry

Marissa Arterberry

Marissa’s work is inspired by the spiritual and cultural traditions of the African Diaspora. She paints goddesses who oversee various realms of the spirit and aspects of healing. Many of the deities Marissa paints appear to her in dreams and visions. She paints what she sees, then researches the origins of what she has painted. Marissa’s influences include music and African dance, nature, and the stories of her ancestors. Marissa was born and raised in San Jose, California. She lives and works in Berkeley with her children Sage and Phoenix.
https://marissaarterberry.myportfolio.com/

Each of these works represent Black women taking creation into their own hands and building new worlds as well as new ways of being.

Lorraine Bonner

Lorraine Bonner

Lorraine Bonner was born into trauma, and to survive she sacrificed her heart and strengthened her mind. Her mind carried her through education and work, and then, halfway through her life, clay slipped into her hands and began to reawaken her heart. Her biography begins anew each day.

Blinded By White: A head and torso of multi-hued clay, the eyes whited out, and a cage containing a black bird on the chest.

I believe in balance. I believe in the African concept of Ubuntu, which means “I am because we are.” I believe in an ecological network of “we,” in which I am a node between the collaborative project which is my body and the collaboration which is our culture and community, as well as the network of all our relations: the animals and plants, the insects, birds and fish; the intricate patterns created by the earth and sky and water which are our parents; the consciousness which pervades creation, our grandparents, the bright stars and dark endless cosmos, all breathing in perfect rhythm.

I am because all of this Is.

In this time of enormous imbalance, my statement, my goal, my yearning is to bring forth art that makes clear the imbalance and strengthens us all in the service of Ubuntu.

Zoë Boston

Zoë Boston

Artist/Singer/Songwriter/Dancer

Zoë Boston is an award-winning, multifaceted artist who has been creating since youth. LA born and Upstate NY raised, she now resides in Oakland, CA. Zoë’s inspirations come from God, life, love, music, dance, and more. She’s dedicated to being authentic, which in-turn, transforms her work into visual and sonic waves of passion expressed on walls and canvas, as well as through music and movement. In her emerging career, she has exhibited her art in the prestigious De Young Museum, has contributed artwork in an Emmy Award Winning documentary, and has had a recent cameo in a documentary featured on CNN, to name a few. Zoë has also exhibited with various galleries in the Bay Area and has created murals that have made a positive impact in her community. She continues to push her artistry In new ways that reflect her growth, her drive, and desire to be a vessel that brings more life into this realm.

The motif of the pieces she is exhibiting is the process of a journey. Everyone’s journey has similar phases; The ups, the downs, the importance to keep going, and to trust God. At the same time, everyone’s journey is wildly different, and that is part of what makes us who we are. Through the viewing windows into her world, That she calls art pieces, you can see how her journey has shaped and prepared her. And in the end she has realized that she is on a journey back to her self.

Asantewaa Boykin

Asantewaa Boykin

Activist, Author - Poet, and ER Nurse, daughter of Valerie, and Granddaughter of Bertha Brandy and Gladys Boykin. Her poetry combines her love of words and resistance. Exploring topics like; space-travel, black-femme militancy,& motherhood. Asantewaa is co-founder of The Anti Police-Terror Project an organization committed to the eradication of police terror in all of its forms.
Her greatest honoring is being Mom to her 5-year-old son Ajani, bonus daughter Aryana and Grandaughter Lilith.
asantewaaboykin.com

This series explores the essence of what it means to be a black woman outside of our physical bodies. I attempted to capture different aspects of our essence past present and future.

Cynthia Brannvall

Cynthia Brannvall

Cynthia Brannvall is an art historian and a multi-media artist who teaches art history as a full-time faculty member of Foothill Community College. She is a California native of African American and Swedish descent. Cynthia has undergraduate degrees in Art Practice and Art History from UC Berkeley where she was a Phi Beta Kappa and a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and was awarded the Departmental Citation for her research in Art History. She has an MA in Art History from San Francisco State University with an emphasis on Modern and Contemporary art. An advocate and ally for social justice and equity, Cynthia’s artwork explores identity formation envisioned in an imagined deep time terrain of memory, reclamation, and the geographies of forced and voluntary migrations. Her artwork has been selected for juried group exhibitions in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Washington DC. She has an affiliation with SF Moma Artists Gallery and Chandra Cerrito Gallery.
cynthiabrannvall.com

Identity Mapping Series are intergenerational portraits of Cynthia Brannvall’s family members collaged with historical, contemporary, and satellite maps from the countries and continents of her heritage. The range of maps includes “outdated” versions with countries that no longer exist or illustrate first nation territories in what would become the United States of America. It is a visual exploration of the artists' interest in the instability of place in regard to notions of nativism and identity. The first nation peoples offer an understanding of identity as connected to seven generations before and seven generations forward. Brannvall considers this in terms of the geography and nationalism of her ancestry and concludes that it is more accurate to understand identity formation and the concept of belonging as an unstable journey. For the artist, intergenerational identity and belonging are a path that meanders through time and places with changing borders, political systems, names, and dates that are determined by exploration, conquest, colonialism, opportunity, lust, and love.

Toshia Christal

Toshia Christal

Toshia Christal is a true loving free spirit who is hard to describe as a particular "type" of artist. Producing art since a child, she is a self taught artist of many forms. Photography, installations, painting, drawing and jewelry are to name a few. Graduating from Berkeley high in 2001, Toshia left high school having obtained all the basics she needed to know about her own art. Her love for experimentation, Aesthetics and Devine connection to her guiding light continues to fuels her creativity. Toshia has had art of all kinds placed within various galleries, exhibitions, Eateries, and art shows around the bay area. She currently owns a brick and mortar in Oakland CA at 2911 Fruitvale Ave. This small business houses her salon/ gallery/ boutique and has been obtained for the past 8 years. Most recently, her photography was exhibited in Macy's SF "Celebrates Pride & Joy" and in April 2020 she co-curated "Unbound Roots" at SomArts. Toshia Christal's art is know to be unapologetic, bold, educational, reflective of African traditions or the love she has for the womban figure. The only culprit of chaos for this artist would be created by attempting to make her choose a medium, specialty or by "boxing" her in.
tchristal.com

"Come with me" is a special project Toshia Christal has been tediously and diligently working on for the past year. With this project she is creating a collection of approximately ten miniature 3-D landscapes cohesively paired within a installation. Each landscape is spiritually created as a portal to escape this cruel world, to tell a story and heighten the experiences of astral travel. From natural materials, recycled materials and found objects Toshia Christal plans to submerge you into worlds that only she has seen. With open arms she invites you by saying.... "Come with me."