1. Joshua Mays

photocredit: via GLITCH Network

Joshua Mays is a Oakland based painter, muralist, and illustrator. Mays pieces carry a “feminine energy” that captures an audience and you can’t help but find yourself falling into each piece. You can catch one of his latest mural series “BEACON” on 4 Oakland buildings. His murals can also be found on buildings throughout Denver, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Portland and Mexico City.

Find more of Joshua May’s work on Instagram and his website:

2. Mshindo Kuumba

photocredit: via Justin Evans

Mshindo Kuumba is a Brooklyn based conceptual artist/illustrator. His art creates a whimsical and naturalistic world that awakens the imagination. Kuumba’s work can be found in comics such as Jaycen Wise, Ebony Warrior, and Dynasty of the Magi.

Find more of Mshindo Kuumba’s work on Twitter and his website:

3. Krista Franklin

photocredit: via Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Krista Franklin is a Chicago based poet and visual artists, originally from Ohio. Franklin’s work features mixed-media collages that add a new texture to her african diaspora centered pieces. Franklin has named Octavia Butler and Sun Ra as influencers to her art. You can quite literally feel each piece jump out at you.

Find more of Krista Franklin’s work on Twitter and her website:

4. James Eugene [Jim114]

photocredit: via James Eugene

James Eugene (Jim114) a native of Elizabeth, New Jersey now based in Atlanta is an entrepreneur, visual artist and designer. Eugene’s work dips and weaves between traditional and digital art. Influenced by his own metropolitan upbringing, art from past centuries and the untold future, his work is a vision of the possibilities of thought provoking art.

Find more of James Eugene’s on Twitter and on his website.

5. Cyrus Kabiru

photocredit: via Sanaa Mtaani

Cyrus Kabiru is a Kenyan artist and TED fellow. His sculptural spectacles or “C-Stunners” are elaborately detailed and inspired; created from found objects and recycled materials collected from the streets of Nairobi. Look through one of his mix-media sculptures and I think you just might see into the future.

Find more of Cyrus Kabiru’s work here:

Website: http://www.ckabiruart.daportfolio.com/gallery/272754#16

6.Tyra White Meadows

photocredit: via Black Buu

Tyra White Meadows is a New York artist currently residing in Arkansas. Tyra’s work pushes the lines of beauty and grotesque. There is a striking honesty to her work that forces introspective look at the idea of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. You can see some of her published work in the Archie’s Pal Jughead comic series.

Find more of Tyra White Meadow’s work here.

7. Wangechi Mutu

photocredit: via MOCA NoMi

Wangechi Mutu is an artist and sculptor originally from Nairobi, Kenya and now based in Brooklyn, New York. Mutu’s work explores themes of sexuality and femininity, violence, consumerism and the gap between nature and culture. Her mixed-media collages bring a physical and conceptual depth to the themes of the pieces.

Find more of Wangechi Mutu’s on Facebook and her Website.

8. Komi Olaf

photocredit: via MANYATTA

Komi Olaf if a Toronto based visual artist and poet. His training as an architect influences his use of light and space. Olaf works primarily with acrylics and his pieces explores the dialogue created through juxtaposition of image concepts and identity.

Find more of Kofi Olaf’s work on Instagram and his website:

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