Join us for a conversation between Luvon Sheppard and Ya'qub Shabazz in association with the Ya'qub's exhibition On The Shoulders of Giants which continues through May 7.

About the Artists

Luvon Sheppard (Rochester, NY) received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he is a full professor in the School of Art and Design. Luvon has also taught at SUNY Brockport and Geneseo Universities. Sheppard’s paintings reflect his involvement in Rochester community life. He is known for his watercolor street scenes and portraits of local African-American heroes, including abolitionist Frederick Douglass, choreographer and dancer Garth Fagan, and community activist Mildred Johnson. His work is in the permanent collections of the Memorial Art Gallery, the City of Rochester, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the University of Seoul, South Korea, the Henrietta School District, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Rochester Savings Bank, Garth Fagan Dance, and many other institutions. Sheppard has always played an active leadership role in the Rochester arts community. In 1970 he became the Memorial Art Gallery’s first Neighborhood Affairs Coordinator. He was also instrumental in the creation of the All Of Us Workshop, a groundbreaking organization created to provide community art classes. Luvon has received many awards, has lectured throughout the Greater Rochester Area, and serves on several committees and boards. Sheppard's work has been exhibited in several exhibitions at RoCo including No Soil Better: Art and the Living Legacy of Frederick Douglass, our 30th Annual Members Exhibition, among others. @luvonsheppardart

Born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, Ya’qub Shabazz is a visual artist, collector, and art educator on a mission to highlight the beauty and contribution of Black American artists, both contemporary and historical. His work explores the relationship between contemporary artistic expression and historical African aesthetic. His influences include Lois Mailou Jones, Charles White, and Aaron Douglas (to name a few) however a large part of his influences were born in the literary world and were made manifest through the visual arts. Primarily an oil painter, Ya’qub Shabazz explores wood carving, acrylic painting, woodblock printing, and many other mediums that express the range of his experiences. His works are not limited to one area similar to Mr. Shabazz himself, he is an artist, writer, father, husband, formerly incarcerated, veteran, and most importantly, a curator of Black culture. Ever since he was a pre-adolescent he had been fascinated by the deeper meanings of things, words, historical figures, and most importantly cultural symbolism. What started out as a "yearning to know” became a tenacious self-study and research into Black Aesthetics that he expresses in a wide variety of artworks. @sankofa_studios @yaqub_shabazz