Painter Hilda Hiary uses bright colors and fleeting patterns to create images that unite instead of divide. Born in Ammam and self-identified as an Arab-Jordanian artist, Hiary forgoes ethnic markers in her characters in favor of soft swirls and fading lines. Just as her lines are never straight, Hiary’s characters are never still. Whether talking or smoking, they are always invigorated with a sense of movement. The dynamic energy is only bolstered by the oscillating patterns.
Hiary’s characters are social creatures. The works explore the complex relations between two girlfriends, mothers and their unborn children, and men and women. In each of her paintings, Hiary uses the form of a circle as an exploratory tool to dissect the human psyche. Emotions, just as political turmoil, are circular, rising and abating through time. Though the conflicting and fearful feelings a mother has toward her pregnancy are vastly different in subject from the heaviness and uncertainty left in the wake of the Arab Spring, Hiary’s use of the circle motif unites the two themes, drawing attention to the potential for both destruction and creation.
Brooklyn based artist 
For more than thirty years, Kerry James Marshall has been creating art to inspire important conversations about African American history and identity. His paintings follow the grand traditions of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, but with new narratives in which black people are the central figures. While Marshall initially began his career as an abstract artist, his dramatic shift to figurative painting occurred in the 1980s when he realized that African American artists and subjects were being excluded from major art museums and galleries. Marshall decided he would use the techniques of the Old Masters so revered in those institutions to create a new dialogue, in which black perspectives are given greater visibility within the art history canon.
Quebec, Cananda based artist 
Berlin based artist