Alyssa Smith-Lee

Alyssa Smith-Lee has been creating art since the age of 5 years old. Born and raised in Long Beach & Compton California, she witnessed the beauty of diversity at an early age. Knowing her artistic talent is a blessing from God, Alyssa's art focuses on bringing His peace & joy to others through mostly scenic land & seascapes and celebrating life through portraits. Appreciative of various styles of artwork and committed to continuously challenging herself in order to grow her talent, Alyssa works with oil paint, acrylic, watercolor, charcoal, pastel, markers, graphite, ink, and colored pencil. An activist as well as an artist, Alyssa has focused her humanitarian efforts on bringing attention to the systemic racism that aims to keep African Americans forever enslaved. Merging her activism, passion for writing, and artistic talent, she's created a social justice blog entitled We Matter, with the intent to humanize the black community face by face. Through a series of interviews, articles dispelling societal stereotypes inflicted on African Americans, poetry, and fine art portraits of black influencers and persons she admires, the blog addresses the intersectionality of issues the black community faces, while offering provoking perspectives and revealing we are all the same, no matter our skin tone. "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." – Barack Obama