Makeba Kedem-DuBose's Profile

From: Chicago, IL
Joined: April 09, 2008
www.graphicsflash.com/makeba

About mkdubose:

My paintings are intended to push the limits of the imagination with bold color, strong line, and fiery strokes. I use lines in my paintings as visual representations of the thread that spiritually connects us to one another while simultaneously exploring the human connection to nature. Color is employed as a catalyst for healing the effects of racism and separatism by displaying the varying hues of the human race often within a single image.

In painting in this fashion, my mission is to pull viewers into a bigger picture, beyond themselves in order to realize our original connection. I view my art as a tool to assist in connecting the human race for the ultimate purpose of peace and equality for all. I paint from my heart and soul, and I know that I am merely a vehicle for the expressions of the creator of all.

Makeba Kedem-DuBose is a widely recognized and respected self-taught, Chicago based visual artist. She is also a curator, and art’s educator whose career spans over 15 years. Makeba is experienced in various art disciplines including but not limited to painting, mixed media, assemblage, installation, and printmaking.

She is a published artist with an extensive exhibition history including both national and international venues.

Makeba became a Certified Youth Worker through an Advancing Youth Development Program in 2007. Since June of 2006, she has been the Art Director and Lead Art Instructor at a Chicago based youth social services agency, and from 2005-2006 she was an artist in residence at Erie Elementary Charter School directing programming for the after school arts program, which she also founded. She was Lead Visual Arts Instructor for Youth at Chicago's Boulevard Art Center from 2003-2004.

Makeba is committed to working with children who with all the budget cuts in arts funding would otherwise have no access to an early art’s education. She is the mother of two girls ages 8 and 18.

Gallery affiliations include: Gallery Guichard, Chicago, IL; Orleans Street Gallery, St. Charles, IL; Ferguson Art Gallery at Concordia University, River Forest, IL; African American Cultural Center Gallery at U.I.C, Chicago, IL; ArtJaz Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Southside Community Art Center Gallery, Chicago, IL; Cubamba International, Toulouse, France.

Makeba is included in many private collections, including that of Daniel Texidor Parker, author of African Art: The Diaspora and Beyond for which her art was selected to be featured on the cover design.