Zeal Harris

Zeal Harris is a Lecturer in Arts and African American Studies at California State University at Fullerton and Otis College of Art & Design. Based in Los Angeles, her work synthesizes influences from Southern Black folk art, Asian scroll painting, Persian miniatures, Mexican ex-votos, and Afrofuturist literature. She explores themes of policing, surveillance, corruption, prison abolition, and ancestral narratives through autobiographical and symbolic visual storytelling.

• Current projects: Pantheon of Akatas (ancestral-mother-maroons and ethnogenesis), I Be Livin’ Black Love (black-feminist-themed illustrations).

Research Interests:
Zeal Harris’ artistic practice interrogates systemic racialized policing, migration histories, and Afrofuturist speculative futures. Her works blend personal anecdotes with collective memory, using urban-vernacular aesthetics to critique power structures and reimagine liberation narratives.

Exhibitions & Recognition:
Her works have been exhibited internationally at venues such as the California African-American Museum, Prizm Art Fair, Ghetto Biennale (Haiti), Caribbean Culture Center of the African Diaspora (New York), and Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum (Arizona). Media highlights include Art News Magazine, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, and the book Creative Souls: African-American Artists in Greater Los Angeles.