Artist Jewel Ham is a 2020 Summa Cum Laude graduate of Howard University, with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts. Upon graduating, she was awarded a curatorial fellowship via Art Table where she discovered the Art Students League of New York.
Working with our exhibitions team, she served as researcher for the Cinque Gallery exhibition at the League. This project—which shines a light on the art space that was a cultural hub of Black art from 1969-2004—was the perfect fit for the recent graduate.
Now that the fellowship is over Jewel says, “it changed how I feel about my existence and relevance in the art world. Accessibility to the arts, especially Black art, shouldn’t be a privileged experience just because I went to college. It tells me that I need to work harder for people like me to exist in this space. That I need to create opportunities for others.”
Additionally, Jewel strives for her personal work to be about Black folk taking up space, “especially because we don’t get any,” she says. “I see a growing sector of space for Black narratives centered on trauma and misappropriation and that’s not only unfair, but inaccurate. My work doesn’t have to be a formal presentation—it’s just us being us!”
Thank you, Jewel, for all of your work. Be sure to follow her art adventures on Instagram!