Jasmin Hernandez’s Debut Book Celebrates Diversity in the Art World

W e Are Here: Visionaries of Color Transforming the Art World is the debut book by Jasmin Hernandez, writer, art autodidact and founder of the contemporary art website, Gallery Gurls. It documents a group of 50 living BIPOC artists and art workers from her creative circle – including QTBIPOC, Black and Brown queer, trans, and nonbinary artists and creatives – from multiple generations.

It is a barrier-breaking and non-traditional roster, and for more reasons than its diverse demography. Through thought-provoking profiles, Hernandez investigates notions of inspiration, background and approach, and examines how they navigate multiple mediums and industries in novel ways, each earning, for their unique reason, status as a visionary, in Hernandez’s eyes.

Many of the participants research, perform or build connections and audiences for their work using the internet. In We Are Here: Visionaries of Color Transforming the Art World, Hernandez elevates and enshrines this contemporary way of viewing, sharing and exchanging art. The internet allows artists and art workers of color to connect around and understand one another's work, especially over social media, a tool which has been instrumental in Hernandez’s creative community building, and a facet she discusses with many of the book’s subjects.

The resulting array is diverse, fresh and uniquely positioned in art markets: there’s Ayana Evans, performance artist and professional troublemaker who shares performance art on YouTube; KT Pe Benito, who is both an artist and a community art worker at Queer|Art, the New York-based nonprofit; Mohammed Iman Fayaz, illustrator and beloved party host; Tourmaline, an artist whose multiple mediums engage their rich activist and historical practice; and Larry Ossei-Mensah, co-founder of ARTNOIR, a non-profit organization which originally got its start as a group of friends creating field-trip-like art excursions.

Like many of her subjects and beloved colleagues, Hernandez’s entree into the art world was unique. As a teenager in 1997 with a passion for contemporary fashion, Hernandez visited New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to view the Gianni Versace exhibition at the Costume Institute. With fond nostalgia, she recalls subsequent defining moments: her teacher’s encouragement in a high school fashion course; trips from Jamaica, Queens into Manhattan for fashion field trips with friends and collaborators; and research at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Through her studies, and the mutual support found along the way, Hernandez became emboldened in spaces of high fashion and art, despite being an Afro-Dominican teenager from a low-income family. It’s no surprise, then, that so much of her passion for today’s contemporary art world is founded on close relationships.

Armed with encouragement and a growing community of creative peers, Hernandez began blogging reviews, interviews and artist studio visits in 2012. She was drawn to “beautiful, luscious colors, and a gorgeous feminine form,” she remembers, but also to artists themselves, and their rich community. The Gallery Gurls voice and presentation style is an authentic testament to Hernandez’s experience finding reflection in art spaces that were compelling but not necessarily inviting. “I love Gallery Gurls because it's a Black Dominican woman entering hyper white, culturally privileged, 1% blue-chip art spaces in Chelsea, all around the country and all around the world,” she says.

We Are Here reflects Hernandez’s signature aesthetic in its design and photographic direction (here, Hernandez is supported by principal photographer Sunny Leerasanthanah, and Jasmine Durhal in Los Angeles). Playful, bright and saturated hues radiate in the photography and typography, conversing elegantly with the work, environment and finery of those featured. The jubilant design showcases the artists and artwork shown, making use of similarly eye-catching pigments, pop iconography, graphic design elements and pageantry in their work or personal style.

The book’s graphic environment matters. It avoids overwrought, traditional and stripped-back art editorials; instead, We Are Here creates a space that is personal, social and inviting. It engages candidly via interviews, and features participants in their own environments – the studios and home spaces that fuel their creativity. Surrounded by and dressed in vibrant Yellow, KT Pe Benito is equally bold when discussing art and art spaces with Hernandez. Questioning credentials, gatekeeping, academia and the need or desire for an “art world” writ large, they reflect: “I met the choreographer and dancer keyon gaskin within the last year. In a printed program for one of their performances, their bio read, ‘keyon gaskin prefers not to contextualize their art with credentials.’ It moved me to see this refusal to participate in art becoming a business practice. I want us to decolonize art so it can tell the truth.”

Hernandez extends an invitation to young people of color looking to see themselves in the art world, to audiences who might wish to avail themselves of the foremost art voices of color on the internet and in galleries and museums today, and especially to the book’s visionaries to recognize their own achievements. “This book is kind of like a yearbook. It’s a graduation for all of us,” Hernandez remarks warmly, reflecting on years of passionate study and collaboration. “I saw their careers blossom and unfold. Some of these artists were featured on the website when they were not as well-known, early on, in maybe 2015, 2016, 2017. And now they're superstars in the art world.”

Hernandez and her subjects' experiences suggest new perspectives and directives to an art world that increasingly wants to diversify and lend amplification to artists from marginalized communities. In We Are Here, these voices are speaking on their own terms, in a space created for and by people of color. And rather than placing the burden to educate on those most affected by their marginalization, the book offers an intimate opportunity to peek into practice and perspective: “If you're a person with power at a museum, if you're white museum leadership – diversify your boards, diversify your curatorial staff, diversify various roles – all the roles – in your museum and in your institution, in your arts space,” says Hernandez. We Are Here makes sturdy documentation and lively continuation of the progressive work needed in the arts today.