Val Broussard Dismukes

Artist’s Biography

Valena Broussard Dismukes, of African, Choctaw, and European heritage, is a Los Angeles based photojournalist with a special interest in portrait, travel, and street photography. In addition, she is a writer and sculptor.
In the main, people are the center of Dismukes’ work. She uses photography to explore and understand the world, as it brings her in contact with fascinating people and their varied histories and cultures. Her explorations have taken her to over fifty countries on six continents and she has just recently returned from Mongolia.
Dismukes’ photography has been presented in more than fifty solo, group, and juried shows, and she has received grants from the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, See’s Candies, the Long Beach Art Council, and the Indiana Humanities Council. Her photographs have appeared in various publications, including World Tennis, Mother Earth, Essence and Cowboys and Indians. Author of eight books, much of her photographic work can be viewed in her book, EYE.
Her major photographic essay, “Native Americans: The Red-Black Connection,” has been featured in more than ten museums and galleries across the country, including the William Grant Still Art Center and Southwest Museum here in Los Angeles, and the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis. Photographs from that series were used in the award-winning film, “Black Indians: An American Story.” Dismukes’ book, “The Red-Black Connection,” based upon her photographic essay was published in 2007. Dismukes has lectured at several institutions on the topic of Black Indians and is a member of Neskinukat, a California Native American Artists Network. She has been a volunteer at Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center in the Angeles National Forest and currently serves on the board of the American Indian Scholarship Fund of Southern California.

NEW IMAGES IN LOCAL PHOTOGRAPHY
The Mystic Arts of Tibet
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