Zakiyah Stewart (she/her) is originally from Bronx, New York, and now lives in Philadelphia. Zakiyah has a career as a painter and a curator, in her paintings, she creates an aesthetic of cuteness to connect to the agency of her black girlhood and tackle the traumas of that age in her artwork. In curating, she has a deep interest in topics of Afrofuturism, expressed best through her recent publication ‘Space is the Place: Afrofuturism in Solange Knowles's When I get home ‘ film. Zakiyah also created her gallery called Zaki Gallery. Zaki Gallery is a black-owned series of pop-up galleries based in Philadelphia and events focused on creating a creative community for WOC and lgbtqia+. The first show this past June, titled ‘FLUX,’ discussed identity through abstraction in artworks from various queer and abstract artists from New York and Philadelphia. Zakiyah will attend the Courtauld Institute of Art for the MA History of Art course Black Futures: Reimagining Modernism after critical race with Professor Dorothy Price.
During the Mellon Curatorial fellowship, Zakiyah has worked with Jack Hinton, The Henry P. McIlhenny Curator of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture, as her mentor.