Kenya Robinson

The self-taught artist from Gainsville Florida, shes uses mass consumer materials to create her pieces. She is multi-disciplinary, working with mixed media, video, photography, and in perfomance pieces. Focusing on the themes of race, concummerism, and gender, Robinson sets out to display the complexites of modern day society through her work.
Many of her exhbitions have had a deeper politcal and societel focus, one of her more recent being HAIRPOLITIC: The Pursuit of Nappiness. In this she used material items such as combs and magazines, to illustrate the unwritten rules of acceptable beauty within American culture.

Though she did not attend an art school, Robinson is ever-evoling- constantly expanding her boundaries as an artist and taking on new challenges. Her work is suggestive, bold, and progressive and for that reason, Robinson is someone to look out for.

Kara Walker

Walker's art embodies themes of history, gender, race, sexuality, and individuality. Coming from an artistic household, Walker had always been emerged in art calling herself so since the she was 2 and half years old. She recieved her BFA from Atlanta College of Art in 1991 and her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1994.
Her work has been displayed nationally and internationally, winning various awards and honors. Her most renowned work is that of her life-size black-paper cut outs. For various exhibitons she focuses on the struggles faced by the black community, whether it be from life in the Antebellum south at the turn of the century, American slavery, or the devestation of Hurricane Katrina.

Also getting public attention at the young age of 27, Walker exemplifys success in the art world, and is setting the path for other women of color to finding a place at major fine art musuems and instutions. Besides from being a working artist, Walker currently works at Columbia University in the MFA program.

Nina Chanel Abney

Only at the age of 26, Abney is not only one of the youngest artist within this profile, but she has been one of the youngest in many of her gallery showings. Since graduating from Parsons school of Design in 2007, Abney has been on a fast track in the art world, grabbing the attention of many high profile curators and collectors across the country. 
Her work challanges the stereotypes of black art, as she explains, " A lot of the time, people have this perception of what a black artist is... Because the show is work of all different types -- not necessarily a stereotype of what a black painting or a painting of black issues would be. These artists touch on all types of different things." 

Her work has a strong illustrative quality to it- combining cartoon quirky figures with bright colors and text at times. Her work almost feels rebellious at points, using playful color palletes with more serious political themes. Her eerie but trippy images could catch the eye of any passer-byer, and would definatley resignate in their psyche.

Mickalene Thomas

New York based artist Mickalene Thomas finds inspiration for her sexually charged mixed media images surprsingly from fine artist Edouard Manet and Henri Matisse. She studied fine art portature and landscaping at Pratt institute where she earned a Bachelor of Fine arts. She continued her studies at Yale univerity, earning herslef a masters in fine arts. Since statrting her career as a full time artist in 2002, Thomas has had her work exhibited at various musuems and galleries, most recently and widley noted her piece completed for the Musuem of Modern Art in 2011.

As previously stated, Thomas focuses on black women with popuar culture refrences. Her subjects are generally in suggestive poses which are both libertaing and empowering as well as eye opening- bringing light to the beauty of all women. With her intense and inviting color schemes and combination of patterns and textures, Thomas pieces illustrate the complex concepts of what it means to be a woman in American society.