About Me

My name is Jima Chester and Im a 20 y/o community mentor, entrepreneur and artist from Baltimore city.

My drive as an artist comes from my passion for making my portrait art become the embodiment of subjective art or subjectivity . Through my time developing as an artist, painting became one of my main mediums. I adapted the style of faceless paintings, bright or earth tone color backgrounds, and creating swirls and bumps of texture with heavy body acrylic paint. But recently I have developed a more detailed and expanded range in my artistic skills.

By combining these different aspects of art, I can receive responses to the art that I hold dear to my heart. Hearing phrases of amazement is always something an artist wants to hear. But what i'm most excited to always hear is that people often express how they can visualize themselves, family, or friends in one of the pieces. Those responses and reactions are what keeps my discipline for art intact.

What keeps me returning to my easel whenever I want to create art is remembering the unforgettable memories I have made as an artist. Hearing the young black girls' awe over which of my paintings or designs looked like them in their favorite hairstyle. I aim to make people and my community feel appreciated and represented through art. I love creating every day, but as a mentor and leader in the community, doing something you love is good–but doing something you love that has purpose is even better.

Being a portrait artist is not something I see as limiting but empowering. I highlight essential things in a portrait beside the face, such as hair, clothes, and colors. While doing this, I love exploring a more abstract or bold route for portraying these parts of portraits. Instead, it's through using palette knives, my fingers, or a combination of various colors. These techniques and processes of creating are my way of expressing myself in the painting through these details and aspects, practicing and making the art my own and unique to me. I’ve been able to see how much impact and education I've provided to my community by sharing my art and telling more people about different forms and how they are artists too.

A huge thank you to my family and friends, supporters, HeartSmiles md, Healing Youth Alliance, Junior States Attorney's program, and so many more individuals and organizations that have believed in me and allowed me to express my creativity through different forms.