February is Black History Month in the United States, an annual observance meant to honor, commemorate, and celebrate the countless achievements and contributions made to American society by the African American community. In recognition of this month, we are spotlighting four Black American cultural leaders and creators who, through their work, are aiming to not only challenge perceptions of the black experience, but also strengthen ties between those of African descent and those who call the continent home.

Read on to discover how Mahen Bonetti, Danny Dunson, Amy Sall, and Kehinde Wiley are expanding the reach of Black voices within and beyond the diaspora through curation and creativity.

Mahen Bonetti

Founder & Director, African Film Festival

Danny DUnson

Founder, Legacy Brothers

An art historian, writer, curator, and the founder of the artist development consultancy Legacy Brothers (as well as its highly popular Instagram account), Danny Dunson is someone dedicated to shining a light on the artistic work of black visual artists. A Gilman Scholarship fellow who grew up in Indiana, he was also a recipient of the Fulbright Grant in 2016. The award gave him an opportunity to live and work in Ghana for over a year, where he embarked on an art history and visual culture research project that complimented his focus on figurative representations within African and African Diasporic Art.

Whereas contemporary art spaces have a history of being relatively exclusionary, Dunson’s Instagram account serves as a form of art curation for the modern age, exposing his thousands of followers to black art and artists in a manner that is familiar and accessible. “I am interested in bringing to the forefront—and not elevating because it’s already elevated—the humanity of black people,” Dunson said in an interview. “We have to create our own structures. Instead of trying to work with the oppression and accommodate it, and waiting until we’re the size of Goliath. We have the power right now, as we always did. Let’s return to that.”

amy sall

Founder & Editor-in-Chief, SUNU: Journal of African Affairs, Critical Thought + Aesthetics

Born and raised in New York City, first generation Senegalese-American Amy Sall wears a multitude of hats: besides being the founder and editor-in-chief of SUNU Journal, a pan-African multimedia platform that exposes readers to the work of artists from a cross the continent and beyond, she’s also a fashion model, a former lecturer at her alma mater The New School, and a consultant who lends her expertise in black and diasporic visual cultures to entities engaged in relevant projects. With SUNU Journal, Sall has created a space for African artists, writers and poets to disseminate their work before a global audience, exploring the potential of Pan-African perspectives and narratives to influence contemporary discourse around the continent.

She has also established the Sall Collection, a small compendium of pieces by Black and African artists that serves as yet another element in her mission to be a megaphone to these voices and bridge the gap of understanding between the African Americans and black Africans. “Africa, its history, its cultural and intellectual production, its socioeconomic and sociopolitical elements have always anchored my work,” Sall told Matches Fashion “Thinking about and researching Africa in many different dimensions [is what] shaped my career.”

Probably best known for his 2018 painting of former US President Barack Obama, which hangs in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, making him the first black artist to paint an official presidential portrait, visual artist Kehinde Wiley’s colorful and intricate paintings subvert the work of Old Master paintings. He has made a literal art of inserting of black bodies and protagonists into scenes which upend established artistic narratives. “So much of my upbringing as an artist was painting white women” he told The Guardian in 2019, calling his painting of black bodies “a return home.” Speaking to Artsy, curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Valerie Cassel Oliver affirmed the sentiment, saying, “[Wiley] saw so much beauty in these classical portraits, so grand and monumental, but the thing that really stuck with him is that no brown or Black people were presented within the portraits.”

Born in Los Angeles but of Nigerian descent on his father’s side, Wiley reportedly developed his passion for portraiture at just eleven years old after spending a period of time attending a conservatory of art in Russia. After receiving his Masters in Fine Arts from Yale University, he found his work being placed on the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and other renowned institutions. In 2019, Wiley established the Black Rock artists’ residence in Dakar, Senegal, a luxury space founded with the mission to engage with black African artists on a deeper level. Here, Wiley hopes to narrow the divide between those working within a western context and those creating within the context of Africa, and expose emerging artist—including writers—to the buzzing creative energy of a continent by which he’s deeply inspired.