Latoya Hobbs’ Art Celebrates The Beauty Of Black Women’s Lives

LATOYA HOBBS

Fine artist Latoya Hobbs is inspired by the ordinary yet remarkable happenings of Black women’s lives. Whether it’s the tender silence surrounding a mother cradling her child in bed, or the exhausted gaze of a pregnant woman, full-term and aching from being on her feet all day, Hobbs sees these living snapshots of Black life as worthy of immortality— so she chisels the seemingly mundane onto massive wood slabs for display. 

A painter and printmaker by trade, Hobbs carves still life into wood, turning the entire piece into a giant stencil of sorts that can then be painted or printed onto canvas. The enormity of Hobbs full-scale projects is intentional. (One of her pieces, The Birth of a Mother, stretches 4 ft by 6 ft ). The size is meant to be striking — a visual call for Black women to take up space in a world that often benefits from our shrinking. 

While Hobbs’ work is now housed in museums and exhibitions all over the world (the National Art Gallery of Namibia, Sophia Wanamaker Galleries in Costa Rica, and the Baltimore Museum of Art, to name a few) the essence of her pieces remain grounded and homegrown. The Little Rock, Arkansas, native, who is now based in Baltimore, told HelloBeautiful she first danced with art in the churches and classrooms of the Bible-Belt South. Hobbs said growing up, she was actively involved in liturgical dance and choir rehearsals, so embodying feelings and emotional expression came naturally to her. Latoya Hobbs was aware of her creative sensitivity from childhood, she said she was lost without any examples of what it looked like to turn her gifts into a career that could provide a stable life for her. So, with hopes of solidifying a more “secure” future, Hobbs entered college as a biology major. 

“I decided to do biology as a major just because I was like, ‘Oh, well, I like learning about the body. I’ll be a biology major,’” she told HelloBeautiful. But she quickly learned the clear, paved road was actually a one-way street to misery. 

“Going through that time of trying to pursue that major, I really found myself unhappy, and I decided to go back to the things that really brought me joy and happiness, which were the arts,” she said. 

Hobbs started taking dance and art classes again before she committed to an official major switch to the arts full-time. Once immersed in her new field of study, she found her soul nestled in the artistic pocket of painting and printmaking pieces inspired by her greatest muses: Black women. 

“All of my work, I feel, is an homage to Black women,” Hobbs told HelloBeautiful. 

“Not only like just Black women, but the people we’re also in relationship with. So that means our brothers, husbands, wives, everybody that we’re connected to. I try to show us in the multifaceted way that we exist,” she said. 

Hobbs’ art serves as a living altar to the multiplicity of Black women’s experiences. Calling the work “reverential,” her portraits reject the notion that Black women can be pigeonholed into just “one thing.” We are both the godly and the humble all at once. 

Before Hobbs could confront the multidimensionality of Black women in her life’s work, she first had to resolve it within herself. Hobbs said she creates a lot of mother and child centered pieces because at one point, she hid her own pregnancy. 

“When I was pregnant with my first son, I was finishing up my first year teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art. And I was just kind of afraid that they wouldn’t hire me back, or think I wasn’t gonna be able to do my work,” she said. Hobbs still works there now, but the fear taught her a lesson: she was creatively holding back. 

Hobbs eventually got to a point where she realized she had to be “honest and authentic” about every part of herself. 

“As artists, we do pour ourselves into our work. And I felt like, you know, my identity as a mother was something that I didn’t have to hide,” she said. Now, dimensions of Hobbs’ own lived motherhood are on full display for hungry art connoisseurs to consume worldwide. 

In 2024, LaToya Hobbs exhibited her life-size collection of art, Carving A New Tradition, at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, and the Harvard Art Museums. Hobbs is also the winner of the 2020 Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, a 2022 IFPDA Artis Grant, and earned a nod for the 2022 Queen Sonja Print award. With so many accomplishments under her belt, Hobbs emphasized that support for independent artistry goes beyond resume bullets; monetary compensation is a key part of her personal and professional survival. 

“I think sometimes people approach [art] as if it’s a hobby or some little fun thing to do, but it really is our livelihood,” she told Hellobeautiful. Hobbs said funding helps artists reduce stress during the art-making process, which helps loosen up creative energy that often gets tied up in bills. As both a creative and a business woman, the wife and mother of two said she still struggles with taking off her superwoman cape and asking for help — which includes soliciting the aid of her husband (who is also her art studio manager) and the rest of her team. Hobbs said she used to pride herself on hyper-independence, but now, she sees it as not only harmful to her health, but also detrimental to the legacy she is building. She said her commitment to rest and teamwork helps her “buy back time” so she can be more fully present “for the things only I can do.” To keep her overworking-self in check, she pulls on her faith, reminding herself that accomplishing big art and big miracles requires the belief and effort of many hands, not just one. 

“If you feel you can do everything yourself, than your vision is probably too small,” she said.