8 Black Creatives/Artists to Check Out and Research by Frida Lamb-Camarena

1) Ann Lowe

LOWE

Born in 1898, Lowe was a notable couturier among high society of the 40s and 50s, designing for the Du Ponts, Roosevelts, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers and Kennedys – most famously, the dress for Jacqueline Bouvier’s marriage in 1953 to future president John F. Kennedy, though when asked who made her dress, Jackie Kennedy would allegedly reply with just “a coloured woman”. In 1946, Lowe designed the dress that Olivia de Havilland wore to collect the Best Actress Academy Award, though the name on the dress was attribut

designer Sonia Rosenberg. Lowe’s most prominent signatures are her handiwork, flowers and trapunto (quilting) techniques. She did not receive public credit for her work on the famous Kennedy wedding dress and was often swindled of hundreds of dollars for her designs from wealthy clients due to racial discrimination.

JOHN ROGERS

2) Christopher John Rogers

Winning the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2019, Rogers’ gaudiness and extravaganza has won over the fashion world in recent months. His work is opulent, consciously over-the-top and requires charisma and flair to pull off. His designs bring drama, as reflected in the performative aspect of the models on his runways.

3) Florine Démosthène

DEMOSTHENE

Raised between Port-au-Prince and New York, the multi-media painting and collage artist’s work is a contemporary take on the body, questioning stereotypes and common perceptions of the black female body in particular, and examining the human condition. She says of her work: “my art has been a peeling away of layers of preconceived ideas… this slow shedding process can be viewed as a continual rebirth of my identity.”

4) Mark Clennon 

Clennon is a photographer who has risen to prominence after a viral photograph taken in front of Trump Tower during 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in New York: he describes his work as “whimsical defiance”, capturing 

black “existence, whether or not the white eye is looking.” Clennon has an eye for 

colour and composition, resulting in beautiful, striking photographs emphasised 

by political

CLENNON

climate, though he feels conflicted in regard to his rising success: “Why is it now that another Black man dies, and I’m getting this type of recognition?” 

5) Pradaolic

Myla, in charge of popular Instagram account pradaolic, is a 19-year-old queer makeup artist based in Manchester. She finds inspiration in drag queens and sitting on the grass in her garden to connect with nature. In an interview with Allure, she states, “I used to struggle a lot with my sexuality… My queerness… she’s the one in charge of making every creative thought I have come to life, the one that makes me who I am today, the one that lets each look’s energy speak for itself”. 

6) Khadija Saye

PRADAOLIC

Saye was a Gambian-British photographer and the youngest exhibitor in the Diaspora Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, where her series of photographs Dwellings: in this Space we Breathe, based on Gambian spiritual practices, was exhibited. Much of her work focused on her cultural identity, and the self-described “deep-rooted urge to find solace in a higher power”. She died aged just 24 in the 2017 Grenfell Tower Fire.

7) Ellen Gallagher

SAYE

Born in 1965 to an Irish-American mother and African-American father, Ellen Gallagher is an artist whose work largely refers to racial stereotyping. Some of her most well-known pieces, including DeLuxe (2005), involve modifying advertisements found in magazines targeted towards the African-American demographic; using multi-media techniques including  photogravure, etching, collage, cutting, scratching, silkscreen printing, and offset lithography. She uses repeated motifs and iconography throughout her work to reference minstrel shows,  

GALLAGHER

and the transatlantic slave trade. 

8) Naima Green

GREEN

Green is a queer artist residing in New York, who has undertaken photography projects involving her friends and people in her own communities. Her 2019 project Pur Suit is a deck of playing cards made up of photographs of queer, trans and non-binary people in Brooklyn, inspired by Catherine Opie’s little-known early 1990s work ‘Dyke Deck’. Green’s ongoing project Jewels from the Hinterland, depicting black people in parks, was sparked after she noticed that minorities are always depicted in cold, desolate spaces to show urban decay and poverty. She said of the project: “I've had a few people say that they can't understand my photographs because, for them, being black in nature conjures up images of slavery... that is incredible”. She aimed to capture “regions that black urbanities are not expected to inhabit. Our hinterlands.”