Breaking Barriers: The Unseen Voices of African American Women in Art
Historically, women artists—especially African American women—have faced systemic barriers to recognition in the art world. Despite their undeniable talent, they have been largely excluded from major museums and galleries, their contributions overshadowed by their male and white counterparts. While women in general account for only a small percentage of artwork exhibited in prestigious institutions, African American female artists represent a mere 0.1% of total museum auction sales. This staggering disparity highlights the deep-seated inequalities that have long dictated the art market, effectively erasing the stories, perspectives, and creative legacies of these artists from mainstream narratives.
Yet, against all odds, African American women continue to create, to express, and to reclaim space in the art world. Their work is a testament to resilience, culture, and the power of storytelling. It is imperative that we celebrate, support, and amplify these voices—not just in galleries, but in classrooms, media, and our collective consciousness. Express the Art Within is more than just a painting; it is a reminder that every artist, regardless of race or gender, deserves to be seen, valued, and heard. The world is richer when African American women’s artistry is given the recognition it has long been denied.
Painted Hymns in Stolen Air by Ocean Eversley
In the silence where walls breathed exclusion,
they painted hymns in stolen air—
hands gathering the dust of centuries,
turning grief into vibrant marrow,
where the museums kept locked doors,
they found galaxies stitched in cloth and clay.
No invitations came, no laurels,
only the memory of women who sang in color,
threading songs through the eye of a needle,
their art not framed but lived,
poured into kitchens, prayers, lamplight—
each gesture a rebellion, each stitch a seed.
Auction houses calculated worth in absence,
spitting silence over their names—
but brilliance does not bargain;
it burns, it weaves, it climbs the rafters
until even marble statues must listen,
until even locked vaults crack open.
They carried their names in pockets of fire,
they carried their grandmothers in pigment,
they carried the future like a steady-beating drum,
even as galleries turned their backs—
even as the sky sometimes forgot their faces.
They remembered their own.
In a world that mistook erasure for authority,
they crafted constellations from refusal,
a new sky—riotous, ragged, radiant—
mapping a future where no map was drawn,
only the pulse of their own art,
and the will to be seen.
Their canvases are not just paint,
but blood, breath, memory, prophecy.
You who stand before their work: listen.
Feel how the brushstroke hums with mourning,
how it howls with celebration,
how it dares you to change.
Because what they create
is not a plea for acceptance—
it is a summons, a reckoning, a mirror.
They do not wait for permission.
They are the permission.
They are the whole cathedral rising.
Express the Art Within is available for purchase. Collect it today!