Tiffany Baker (she/her) is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based visual artist, working in oil, acrylic, pencil, digital media, and glass. Tiffany works in a unique style of realist portraiture marked by vibrant palettes and considered attention to her subject's grooming, often merging somber, regal, and mundane themes, bringing forth her subject's essence. In her portraiture, she transmutes life experiences into emotive visual expressions that reimagine trauma, embed messages of connection, and celebrate her identity as a Black woman.

Her most recent work, The Dear Neighbor Project, is a public art initiative in Gowanus, Brooklyn, that combines large-scale vinyl murals and recorded oral histories to highlight the experiences of local residents affected by flooding. Installed throughout the neighborhood in partnership with the Van Alen Institute, the project features portraits, quotes, and audio from community members displayed in public spaces—making their stories visible and accessible to all. The work addresses environmental injustice, aging infrastructure, and displacement through firsthand accounts from neighbors living at the intersection of climate change and urban development.

Tiffany was a featured artist in When We See Us (New York, 2023), a five-month photo exhibition by Souls In Focus presented in partnership with the NYC Department of Transportation Art Program. She has shown in group exhibitions including Black X: Afrofuturism at NYCH Gallery (Chicago, IL, 2023); Ain’t No Time To Hate (Liverpool, UK, 2021) with the eponymous Anthony Walker Foundation; Uhill Walls (Durham, NC, 2020), the largest collection of murals on a 15-acre site, where her 20x20 ft mural depicts late fashion journalist and pioneer André Leon Talley; and The Armor of Saul by Unjaded Curations (Brooklyn, NY, 2019). Tiffany’s solo exhibitions include The Reflective History (Raleigh, NC, 2021), Light Beings (Brooklyn, NY, 2018), Heritage (Brooklyn, NY, 2017), and Smilehood and Other Stories (Brooklyn, NY, 2016).

Tiffany’s walkable art installation, The Reflective History, honors the historic first Black subdivision in Raleigh, NC, Rochester Heights. The commission is made possible by The Conservation Fund’s Parks with Purpose. Working with fused glass, she created three portraits commemorating Lilian Currin, an educator; Millard Peebles, the founding contractor of Rochester Heights; and Willie Taylor Hicks, a long-time resident. Tiffany worked with a Raleigh-based landscape architecture firm, Design Workshop, for over a year from concept to final execution. The exhibition is currently on display.

Tiffany’s published work, J is for Justice (Wise Ink publications 2023), is a 40-page illustrated social justice children’s book written by activist Nekima Levy-Armstrong and illustrated by Tiffany. Other work includes two illustrations featuring Haitian-Swiss visual artist Sasha Huber and Ethiopian lawyer/activist Yetnebersh Nigussie for Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Real-Life Tales of Black Girl Magic! (Timbuktu publications 2021). Her artwork has been featured in the HBO special adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ novel Between the World and Me (2020) and on VH1’s Black Girl Beauty (2019), a six-episode series available on YouTube.

In addition to creating art, Tiffany is a frequent featured panelist. Some notable talks include Brooklyn Museum’s Power and Presence (2024) for BKM Teens, where she shared her artistic journey and career development over the years. Tiffany holds a Bachelor of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and has trained at SVA and The New York Academy of Art. She has spent the last decade creating digital content as a Senior Interactive Designer with CNN.

I create artwork defined by black protagonists who are mythical, historical, alive present-day, or deceased as the subjects in my portraiture in oil, acrylic, pencil, and glass.

In my process, I use music, archival photographs, essays, and oral “rememberings” for inspiration and source material. I often show my figures with a majestic intensity in their gaze as if they're sitting across from the onlooker holding an unspoken conversation.

My art bridges a relationship between the viewer and the subject to create a shared space of intimacy. My future vision is to collaborate with institutions to create emotionally themed bodies of artwork in which people witness a complex reflection of themselves.

–Tiffany Baker