8 Black Artists To Get on Your Radar
In celebration of Black History Month.
As Black History Month continues, we’re spotlighting a lineup of Black artists who deserve a permanent place on your radar. Too often overlooked in mainstream conversations, these boundary-pushing creatives are reshaping the art world with distinctive techniques, powerful themes and personal stories — and we’re spotlighting some of our favorites.
From painters and photographers to mixed-media moguls, there are plenty of different disciplines to pay attention to, so we’ve rounded up the best of the best. Featuring names like multimedia powerhouse Tschabalala Self, the expressive forms of Jack Kabangu and the enigmatic work of Lauren Halsey, each artist in our list brings something powerful, personal and unapologetically original to the table.
Read on for our curated list of Black artists redefining contemporary art.
Qualeasha Wood
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Qualeasha Wood, previously featured on Hypebae, combines traditional tapestries with technology to explore gender identity in Black female bodies. Fusing the digital with the analog, Wood has become known for her distinctive style of jacquard tapestries and tufting to explore practicing safety as a Black woman. Inspired by her familial relationship to textiles, queer craft and internet avatars, the artist offers us a fresh take on the political environment, exploring Black American Femme existence.
Tschabalala Self
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Harlem-born Tschabalala Self uses painting, printmaking and sculpture to explore the figure. Mostly depicting women, Self combines sewing and printing to traverse mediums and create an inquiry into selfhood and human flourishing. The artist often reappropriates cultural images, responding to existing art, to draw our attention to the ways in which Black women are objectified and presented in media.
Ndidi Emefiele
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Nigerian-born and UK-based artist Ndidi Emefiele is creating layered, surreal multimedia pieces that unpack the everyday particularities of a distinctly feminine and diasporic experience. Inspired by Nigeria’s culture of consumption and reuse, Emefiel pursues material experimentation, making use of textiles, photo cutouts and even found objects like CDs to create the richly textured portraits. Just take a look at her Instagram and you’ll instantly feel the depth of her work.
Jack Kabangu
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Zambian-born Jack Kabangu creates hovering face-like forms with bright colors and heavy lines that feel like a commentary on African tribal masks while appearing to subvert the derogatory ‘Jim Crow’ caricature of the 19th century. Combining figurative and abstract styles, the result is a blend of Abstract Expressionism and graffiti art that feels reminiscent of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Taking his influences from urban culture, hip-hop music and personal experiences, Kabangu’s work invites the viewers to connect to a personal sense of joy. With a base in Copenhagen, the artist has exhibited in Tokyo, Hong Kong and London, and you can now catch him showing at the LIS10 Gallery in Arezzo, Italy, until December 6, 2025.
Lauren Halsey
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Lauren Halsey is a Los Angeles-based artist who combines found, fabricated and handmade objects in her work to reflect the lives of the people around her. The work addresses issues confronting people of color, queer populations and the working class. Halsey is inspired by Afrofuturism and funk, creating a radical and collaborative form of work that rethinks the possibilities of art and architecture. Featured at this year’s Frieze Art Fair and dubbed “one of the most dynamic artists working today” by the Gagosian gallery, she’s set for domination.
Ciarra K Walters
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Ciarra K Walters uses an interdisciplinary approach that includes performance, photography, printmaking and sculpture. Walters examines the figure and uses her own body to create artworks with egg shells, wires and other materials to blur the boundaries between the self and the environment. The artist recently announced her first museum exhibition titled “Giving you the best that I got” in Los Angeles. An exploration of Black motherhood, the exhibition features artists creating work that spotlights their histories through themes of nostalgia and cultural inheritance, and is on view until March 2026 in Leimert Park, LA.
Abigail Lucien
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Abigail Lucien is a Haitian-American interdisciplinary artist. They work across sculpture and literature, addressing themes of belonging, myth and place by considering relationships to inherited colonial structures and systems of belief. Many of the motifs included in Lucien’s work relate to grief and meditation, unpacking how the artist worked through their own past to process these experiences. Lucien was recently selected for the Forbes “30 Under 30” list, with their work displayed at institutions across the U.S.
Ambrose Rhapsody Murray
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Ambrose Rhapsody Murray is known for their multimedia artworks that span textiles and paintings. The vibrant tapestries explore family history, Black femininity and spirituality. One of our personal favorites is The hummingbird hovered within the house (2023), which combines family photographs in a patchwork style with a slight blur that creates a warm glow around figures. The work produces a rich lineage with soft fabrics and muted, natural tones. Also featured in Forbes’s annual “30 Under 30” list, Murray is definitely one to follow.
