jasmin hernandez

This feature is part of CNN Style's new series Hyphenated, which explores the complex issue of identity among minorities in the United States.
Raelis Vasquez, a New York and New Jersey-based artist, works from a bank of his memories and emotions to create tender and sincere paintings of Afro Dominican life. Usually featuring his kin and friends, the large-scale oil and acrylic works are cast in warm and welcoming colors. In one painting, a brown-skinned girl in a tubi, a tubular hairstyle cra...

Of the many illuminating scenes in Liesl Tommy’s directorial debut, the biographical drama Respect, a unique moment happens when Aretha Franklin, played meticulously by Jennifer Hudson, sits at her piano late at night in her New York apartment, contemplating what will ultimately become her biggest song. She’s surrounded by her two sisters in their pajamas and headscarves, as she pieces together her civil rights and feminist anthem, “Respect” (an Otis Redding cover), over the piano keys. Her o...

In Moises Salazar’s (they/them) recent exhibit at Mindy Solomon, Puto El Último, the beautiful brown figures depicted in their vibrant mixed media works resist masculinity. The subjects exist as femme and carefree, finding joy in rest. Puto El Último marks Salazar’s debut show with the Miami-based gallery, where they unpacked the multiplicty of their identities — being queer, non-binary, first-gen, and Mexicanx — thoughtfully on the canvas. The show’s name, Puto El Último, reveals its homopho...

Spoilers ahead.
The postponed and much-awaited comedy-drama Zola has finally arrived like a prettily packaged gift with scented tissue paper. Only that gift actually contains a grenade inside. What starts out as a tale of two beautiful young strippers—Zola, played by Taylour Paige (Boogie, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), and Stefani, played by Riley Keough (The Lodge, The Devil All the Time)—embarking on a road trip to dance in Florida quickly evolves into a messy, mayhem-filled, murderous 48-eigh...

Three artists explore expanded views of Black culture and imagination.

“I ’m rootin’ for everybody Black!” proclaimed actress and multi-media mogul Issa Rae at the 2017 Emmys, clad in a sumptuous red asymmetrical gown, in a now-viral moment. Rae’s sincere and heartfelt statement has since floated through the interwebs and continues to be proudly used by Black folx online. This exaltation of Blackness, one so essential and critical, translates into the work of intergenerational artists and cre...

There’s a fluid thread of seduction quietly present in Naima Green’s portraiture. This energy is always there, soothing and coated in softness, from the start of her career. She introduced her ongoing series Jewels from the Hinterland in 2013, photographing Black sitters, including artists, writers, and creatives she felt drawn to, in local urban green spaces from Brooklyn to Oakland. The portraits are striking, pure, and inherently genuine, their subjects surrounded by verdant foliage. There...

Dress Codes: Black and Brown Women Artists Fashioning Identity

In De Lo Mio, Diana Peralta’s camera moves slowly, smoothly, and sublimely across a lush Dominican landscape, as close-knit Dominican-American sisters Carolina and Rita come face to face with family demons on a visit to DR. The two young New Yorkers—played by Like, Share, Dímelo hosts and real-life, Bronx-raised best friends Darlene Demorizi and Sasha Merci—connect with their estranged older brother, Dante (played by the prolific Dominican actor Héctor Aníbal), as they await the demolition of...

“The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.”
These unfortunate truths, declared by the eternal Malcolm X in 1962, still ring furiously true today. As many demand justice for the murder of Breonna Taylor, and the killings of Black trans womxn including Nina Pop, Riah Milton, Dominique “Rem’Mie” Fells, Brayla Stone, the death of Layleen Polanco, (and countless cis...

YOUTH COLLECTIVE BRUJAS IS CHANGING THE GAME

JOEONNA BELLORADO-SAMUELS BRINGS LEVITY TO BEDSTUY WITH WE BUY GOLD GALLERY

LEGACY RUSSELL ON GLITCH FEMINISM, CURATING AND THE UPSIDE OF GROWING UP IN NEW YORK

DINNER AND A REVOLUTION WITH ELIA ALBA

FASHION RENEGADE AND DJ VENUS X CHARTS A NEW MODEL FOR CREATIVE OUTPUT

ARTIST JA’TOVIA GARY AND HER FILMS ARE A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH