JaeMe Bereal

Born in South Central, California / Works in Oakland, California

BIO

JaeMe grew up amid the tumultuous 1970s in south central Los Angeles. Luckily, with excellent grades and scholarships, she attended UC Berkeley in 1981 for Fine Art, studying under the renowned ceramic innovator Peter Voulkos. Due to a period of disillusionment, both politically and artistically, JaeMe dropped art completely for eight years. Upon her return in 1989, she dove in with renewed zest. She matriculated in a commercial art school at 40, thinking to become a 3D illustrator, only to discover she felt most at home in 2D illustration and portraiture.

JaeMe went on to illustrate the cover of Deborah Santana’s haunting memoir "Space Between the Stars, My Journey to an Open Heart" that reflects on her 31-year marriage with guitar legend Carlos Santana. She was also commissioned to illustrate "In Her Hands, The Story of Sculptor Augusta Savage", the first children’s origin story for this trailblazing African American sculptor. Today, she's an Oakland, CA portrait painter and hair stylist, which has provided the supports and independence to cultivate her art over the last 25 years.

Music, politics and people are integral aspects to my work. Music elicits powerful visuals, politics and social issues offer opportunities to challenge and illuminate, and people's faces are multi-colored landscapes etched in a tangle of emotion and experience. My goal is to offer substance and context that bring people closer to real issues that affect us all. I regularly feature people of color, and my hope is to empower those who feel marginalized or somehow short-changed.