Jahniah Kum (b. 1997, Albany, NY) is a Interdiciplinary, Caribbean-American New York & Baltimore-based artist whose work explores the evolving shape of grief through self-portraiture, repetition, and layered compositions. Rooted in the loss of her mother, her practice asks: What does it mean to be whole when something vital is missing?
Her body becomes a vessel for what cannot be spoken, each painting a process of “re-membering,” as bell hooks describes, reclaiming fragmented parts of self through visual language. Her palette, grounded in earthy tonal shifts, reflects the emotional depth of memory, mourning, and Blackness as presence, weight, and witness.
In recent works like The Martyr’s Return (Duppy), Kum begins to explore spiritual and protective motifs, loosely referencing Jamaican and West Indian folklore as a way of thinking through fear, inheritance, and ancestral presence.
Her work becomes both a site of confrontation and a space of care. Rather than seeking closure, her paintings remain open—resting in the stillness and repetition of mourning, and offering space for reflection, tenderness, and transformation.
Kum earned an A.S. in Fine Arts from Hudson Valley Community College (2020), a B.A. in Studio Art from the University at Albany (2023) and a MFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has been exhibited in a range of group exhibitions, including the annual Mohawk Hudson Regional Show, a solo exhibition at the Spare Room Gallery in Baltimore and the Peale Museum of Art.