Halima Cassells has been painting and exhibiting her work since high school.  However her artistic beginnings can be dated much earlier.  At the age of three, Halima felt the need to create a work on the side of her parents’ bookcase.  Her medium of choice for the masterpiece was caulk from her father’s caulking gun.

As a visual artist Halima has received several honors. She received the James Tatum Art Scholarship. She has received a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council, and has had the honor of being commissioned to create a Congressional Seal commemorating Rosa Parks. Professionally, she frequently exhibits in New York City and continuously works on murals and public art projects.

After a ten year stint on the East Coast, native Detroiter Halima Cassells, has returned home and is choosing Detroit as her base.

And she is consistently creating. She paints. She draws. She photographs. She creates documentary collage. When working “small”, she mainly works in acrylic on various surfaces and sizes and often adds found objects, paint marker, photographs, and historical text. When working “large” she likes to create murals that transform space while teaching the technique to youth. To date she has completed over fifteen murals in New York and Detroit.

“My work is a conversation full of emotion and fully representative of my experience as a human in this time and place” Cassells finds her voice and her inner self freed in the mixture of media and color.

An historian who recognizes and celebrates my own subjectivity when creating- this is my role as an artist. I use paint as the main medium of expression, however I enjoy layering other media, and meaning to recreate visions of time/space/emotion. Primary sources such as clippings, original photographs, local found objects, as well as hand-written text often find their way into my work. Most recently I have been incorporating industrial coatings and automotive paints as a representation of my home- Detroit.

References

“Students and staff chose Ms. Cassells because of her open nature and willingness to work collaboratively with our university community to create a mural… most impressive was that Ms. Cassells agreed to complete the mural over the course of 7 days and did so successfully.”

“I can attest to her skill as an artist as well as her ability to teach technique and facilitate students’ expressions of creativity.”

“…a pleasure for both the students and myself to work with Halima”

“Ms. Cassells… made a wonderful impact…”