Samantha Vernon

Samantha Vernon is an art school graduate, and a friend of BYHANDNYC. She has a elegant style of creating art and an amazing smile. Ms. Vernon is the development and marketing manager of contemporary art at BRIC Arts Media in Brooklyn, and Studied fine arts at Cooper Union. We are happy and grateful for her to take the time out and do an interview.

Thank You!

When did you find your art?

Though I've been making art for as long as I can remember, I think I found art when I discovered my voice, my unique vision. This started to happen around 2008 or so while I was studying photography, printmaking, drawing and painting at The Cooper Union. I was also working an office job full-time to support myself and had down time to read and sketch. All of the sudden I realized I didn't want to do anything but draw and Xerox female figures from my imagination and memory that looked like a cross between William Blake and Kara Walker. From there, I started having dreams and creating archetypal characters to explain my blackness and my subconscious in a 2-dimensional world and I was building a universe with landscapes for it.

Inspirations, and why?

My mother will always be a huge inspiration to me but I've also established a bond of consciousness with women I’ve never met based on shared notions of womanhood, blackness, and oppression on a historical and contemporary level. To find myself, I tapped into a collective memory. My creative process is fueled by women writers and artists I’m in dialogue with: Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Zora Neale Hurston, Edwidge Danticant, Kara Walker, Octavia Butler, Adrian Piper, Betye Saar, Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, among many others.

An African art class also influenced me a lot. I learned about a belief system that ran through my blood. I learned about gods, spirits, ancestors, and living people as connected beings and a female-centered beginning of time. I felt connected to something ancient and real. My existence made sense within a time-line that could swallow me up.

Then, I started drawing images based on mostly Southern historical fiction. History and the unknown are huge influences.

Who are you, think you are?

I have many sides. I think I'm a young Black women defining what kind of world I want people to see. I'm an inventor of images. I'm also a young professional who feels fulfilled when I can give opportunities and platforms for expression to other young artists and students. I'm a woman who loves women.

Family, do you love them?


I love my family. I have special love for the women in my family--my mother, sisters, grandmother, and aunts. Sometimes its difficult to show them and tell them how I feel.

Favorite song, why?

Try A Little Tenderness by Otis Redding; the definition of soul and will always be on my life's playlist


Swag, what does it mean to you? That is the gold question.

Unquestionable confidence.



HER ART HERE