Omari Booker

Omari Booker is a Nashville-based visual artist who specializes primarily in murals and oil paintings. The creation of art is, for Booker, a cathartic experience that allows him to process and he “aspires to create work that communicates to his audience their unique and intrinsic ability to be free.” Booker’s first show was called Fifteen and explored the experience of his fifteen years subject to the carceral system. Many of the works in this exhibition were portraits of loved ones who supported him, during those years, allowing him to survive and grow. More recently, Booker has begun to paint unhoused individuals in his local community. The artist has been connecting with these individuals over the past several years, and wants to bring to light those whom society would prefer to ignore.

L.W.D.

L.W.D. (Little Walt Dog) is a multimedia artist from Los Angeles. He began creating art after his release from a 30-year prison sentence, and seeks to evoke a child-like perspective through his work. Growing up in LA, LWD was exposed to the car and music culture that envelops the city, and he pulls from both in his creative process. His depictions of cars are symbols of freedom and metaphors for the complex stories and class struggles that he sees play out in Los Angeles every day. L.W.D ‘s lack of formal training in the arts allows him to take an uncalculated approach when creating new work; he paints what he likes, and tells stories that are personal to him and reflect what he has seen to be true in the world.