Zaria Jalan

Biography

As a black painter and software engineer, my work is a reflection of the images I see in daily life. It emphasizes the scarcity of modern black representation. My work is mainly focuses around this new black generation growing up in the 2000s. I reference artists from the Harlem Renaissance like Jacob Lawrence and Archibald Motley. I also use visual cues from new representations of blackness such as instagram memes, snapchat filters, and black twitter. The visual juxtaposition between blackness of the civil rights era and blackness in the 21st century is intended to be critical and reflective of our supposed post-racial america.