Artist Bios

Anthony Pittman

Anthony Pittman is a local artist from Compton, CA who specializes in traditional painting, mural art, and floral design. His art is influenced by catholic art, black culture, and abolition/decolonization.

Charles Dickson

“Being an Artist is a gift, a way to pray and to create the visions of the past, present and the future”.Charles Dickson is a divinely inspired, self-taught artist, sculptor, and designer for over 65 years. The Civil Rights and Black Pride Movements inspired his initial and continued work. By age nineteen, Dickson was exhibiting with internationally known mixed media artist John Otterbridge, Noah Purifoy, and Cecil Fergerson. He became a Studio Watts Workshop artist-in-residence, going on to lead the Compton Communicative Arts Academy’s Sculptural Workshop, which became his home-based studio for over 50 years.

Kaya Fortune

“I was born in Oakland Ca., but raised in Compton Ca. from about the age of 9 years old. My artistic adventure began with my mother who was a ceramicist. She was always drawing or painting and creating a variety of craft projects. My high school art teacher Mr. Hall, opened my eyes to a variety of art mediums and he turned us on to Black artists. I loved the work of Charlie White because he showed black people in a positive light of strength and dignity. Later, I got introduced to John Outterbridge and Charles Dickson, who were doing assemblage sculpture and their work blew my mind.  Today in my present work Iam painting, assemblage sculpture, fashion design. I've been teaching visual art in the Bay Areas for 30 years from TK to the Universities level. We must keep the beat pumpin ONE LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!”

Mel Depaz

Mel Depaz is a first generation Salvadoran-American artist born and raised in Compton, CA. Her work is influenced by design, color, and her upbringing in Compton. She takes influence from the locals' culture and landmarks motivated to paint a positive picture of Compton. Her journey to do this started with T-shirts of the city's landmarks with the intent to promote city pride; she later painted the “Patria Coffee - Compton” painting located in the city's locally owned Patria Coffee shop. She then went on to paint multiple murals in Compton located at Kumi Ko Sushi, Isana Achernar Charter School, The Buffalo Spot, Foot Locker and worked with local artist Anthony Pittman to paint the largest mural in the city.

Mohammed Mubarak

Mubarak began his painting career in 1970 as a high school student through the influence of his uncle, Arthur Dunlap Jr., a talented pencil and ink portrait artist and David Mosely, an oil painter who also happened to be the uncle of boxing legend Sugar Shane Moseley. During that time, Mubarak also endured the Watts Rebellion, briefly joining the Los Angeles Chapter of the Black Panther Party as a result.

With no formal training, Mubarak honed his craft taking commissions from friends and colleagues as well as the talent and celebrities like Redd Foxx, Reverend Ike, and Stevie Wonder, whom he encountered during his brief stint as a radio announcer. Mubarak soon found himself embedded in the world of boxing, meeting the likes of Don King and Bob Arum and eventually meeting and forming a close relationship with the late and great Muhammad Ali who has been the subject of several of his murals and portraits. In 2022, Mubarak presented a series of works in a solo exhibition and his works can be spotted in murals around Los Angeles and in the Compton City Hall.

Kevin B Jones

Kevin Bernard Jones was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, California. He was introduced to photography at a young age when he was allowed to use the family Polaroid camera on Sunday family trips to the Los Angeles County Museum. These early experiences set the seed for his life-long passion for photography. Primarily self-taught, Kevin focuses his camera on less-traveled communities and places in the world. His travels and photographic interests include Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the southern region of the United States. He reaches out to connect with people and capture images that include those of the African Diaspora, which he is a part of. Kevin finds great personal satisfaction working with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that support local community initiatives. He uses photography as a tool to help organizations tell and share stories about the people they support and empower.

Rosalind McGary

Rosalind has been a working artist for over 25 years. Along with painting, she is dedicated to creating opportunities for artist engagement in our communities. She is Founder of Los Angeles based Sēpia Artist Collective, through which she has produced ICONIC: Black Panther, and is creative director of The Compton Arts Project.  The Compton Arts Project produces a series of workshops, panels and events highlighting Compton’s impact on art and culture.  Rosalind is founder of Cakecutter Institute, an arts non profit that centers artists of color, whose mission is to explore ways in which the arts can improve the quality of living for all people. Rosalind was the the first woman member of Soul Salon 10 artist collective.  She lives and works in Compton, California.

Toni Toney

Toni Toney is an artist and art educator from Southern California. She holds a B.S. in Art from Troy University and a M.Ed. from AUM. Toni has been an art educator for 19 years and is currently teaching Visual Art to adjudicated youths at L.B. Wallace School on the Mt. Meigs Campus of the Alabama Department of Youth Services. As an artist, many of the paintings she creates invoke the nostalgia of her childhood growing up in Compton, California. In addition, her other works are created to bring awareness to social and societal issues. Her works have been on view at the African American Museum of Art in Dallas, Tx, The Sojourner Truth Museum in Sacramento, Ca, The Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, and various locations in the Southeast.

When she's not creating, Toni also enjoys spending quality time with her husband Dwight and their son, Kamden.

Elliott Pinkney

A native of Georgia, Pinkney (born 1934) moved to southern California after serving in the U.S. Air Force. He earned a B.A. at Woodbury College. A poet and sculptor as well as a painter, he has lived in the community of Compton for 20 years. In the early 1970s he was active at an innovative community arts school called Compton Communicative Arts Academy. During 1977 and 1978 the walls of Compton were his studio. Funded by a special grant from the California Arts Council, he completed eight murals. Their underlying themes were African-American pride and the importance of understanding between different cultures.

Cindy Macias

Cindy “cindita” Macias is an interdisciplinary artist, multimedia maker and after school art teacher where she seeks to introduce art to communicate, discover, and engage with the world within and around us. she uses art, imagination, and creativity as part of a ritual for self-care to explore her thoughts and to process difficult, often deeply repressed emotions. her creations become tangible proof of her love for the process of healing, growing, and learning and are meant to honor and adorn the places and spaces we inhabit.

Angel Hernandez

"Born in the culturally rich city of LA, Ángel J. Hernández was raised in the City of Compton, which later influenced the stories he chose to tell and giving light to perspectives they’re not traditionally given. “I first experimented with photography when I was in Middle school. Having insight into the personal lives of my homies I tried to incapsulate those nuances of our surreal life circumstances. I believe we have to own our narratives in every aspect, and the who telling our stories matters too. We must be the one to disrupt the narratives assigned to us.”

Gallery