By Okon Ekpenyong and Quentin Patterson

Columbus, Ohio-based Hosea Artista uses art with a unique and powerful way to give people a much-needed sense of normalcy.

Turning a lifetime passion into a career is a path that many new entrepreneurs have pursued either because it is unpleasant working for someone else or due to the pandemic’s unfortunate circumstance. And this, with so many uncertainties, leaving many families scrambling and looking for ways to earn an extra income to stay afloat.

This experience has left everybody feeling anxious and overwhelmed with anxiety, but here comes a local artist from Columbus, Ohio, Hosea Artista, telling a unique and powerful story using art to give people a much-needed sense of normalcy.

He paints with passion and uses abstract and melanated art to help uplift spirits. Hosea would draw in elementary school but often got him in trouble with his teachers during lesson plans. However, it did not derail him from pursuing his creative fire.

“Life is but a dream, within a dream (Shakespear),” and for Hosea, he has put what he visualizes into his pencils and paintbrushes. Art is what he does to make a living and give his supporters something beautiful to look forward to when visiting him on his social media page, both on Facebook and Instagram.

He only creates melanated art to express the love for who he sees himself as and his heritage. Hosea infuses melanin excellence in his art, common themes of kings and queens to positively depict melanated people. He is incorporating different cultures like Moorish culture with some of his pieces. And this young artist painting takes one on a journey of self-discovering and ancestral wisdom.