DeSande R | Labor of Love

DeSande R | Labor of Love
Febrary 18 - April 5, 2025

In partnership with the Black Student Resource Center, DeSande is our featured artist for Black History Month. DeSande R is an educated artist born in Chicago, Illinois, and currently resides in Carbondale, Illinois. In college she researched African American artists such as Laura Wheeler-Waring, Adrian Piper, Archibald Motley Jr, Jacob Lawrence, and Elizabeth Catlett. Other influential artists during her gradu-ate school years were Rembrandt van Rijn and Odd Nerdrum. DeSande worked closely with Professor Najjar Abdul-Musawwir (International Artist), the Emeritus Robert Paulson, and many other excellent art professors at Southern Illinois University. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting from SIU Carbondale in 2002.

DeSande taught at John A. Logan College in Carterville, Illinois, for 20 years. She previously worked on paintings concerning influential people in the community, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone. She also ventured into analog photography within the subject of portraiture. Some of her previous works encompass using pens to do expressive drawings and doing print-making of linoleum block prints. DeSande is currently working on a series of linoleum block prints portraying the natural hair styles of African American men and women, African symbols and the history behind it, and iconic musicians and singers.