About

Nia Keturah Calhoun (Asheville, NC 1991) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Washington, D.C. Working in acrylic and spray paint across mural-scale walls and canvas, her practice centers on community, spirituality, and the love of people. She is drawn to images that hold contradictions: serious and playful, sacred and silly, tender and political, because that is how Black life actually feels. Her visual language was shaped by the pop culture she grew up loving — Bébé's Kids, Love Jones, Hey Arnold — and it shows in the cartoonish, surreal, and BLACK ways she paints people.

Her commissions span Nike, Foot Locker, Ari Lennox, and the Smithsonian, and her work has been exhibited across Washington, DC, New York, and Johannesburg. Notable public projects include the "Facing the Rising Sun" mural honoring Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and a Juneteenth illustration for the Human Rights Campaign. Her art and commentary have appeared in The Guardian, Hypebeast, and The Washington Post. In painting, she holds one motto: make room for The Spirit.