My Background
Indira Bailey, Ph.D., is an artist, educator, scholar, and researcher. She was born and raised in Plainfield, NJ, to the daughter of a postal worker and teacher’s aide.
Indira started her art journey as a child. She was inspired by Ernie Barnes’s paintings featured on the TV show “Good Times,” depicting the African American world and the realism of Norman Rockwell’s paintings. Her mother realized Indira’s talent and entered her in the local art festival where she sold her first drawing at 11.
Indira was formally trained at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, and received her BFA in Communication Design (Illustration).
Several years after graduation, Indira incorporated teaching into her art career when she was asked to teach an afterschool mural art program with the Plainfield Public School District. She started to realize there was a need for children to create art and see African American artists in their community. Indira was a high school art teacher for sixteen years: one year at Irvington High School and 15 at Essex County Vocational School (Newark and Bloomfield Campus) in New Jersey. During her teaching tenure, Indira received her Master's in Educational Leadership and Supervision from Kean University, Union, NJ. She has received three Fulbright-Hays Fellowships to South Africa, Japan, and Morocco, and a Creative Currents Artists Residency in Portobello, Panama.
As an African American artist and art educator, Indira noticed the lack of African American artists, especially women, represented in art education. She pursued her doctorate and received her Ph.D. in Art Education and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies dual degree program at Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA.
My Art
I find joy in storytelling through painting and drawing, using my art to capture scenes from the everyday lives of underrepresented communities of color. My passion for art lives in the faces of people—I aim to bring out the depth and soul in their eyes. Oil paint is my first love; I’m drawn to its fluidity, vibrancy, and the dynamic energy it brings to each piece. It’s a medium that has taught me patience, just as I’ve been patient with it. I also work with graphite and watercolor, and I’ve learned to let my creativity roam freely across mediums, from stained glass to ceramics other forms of artistic expression.
