Painter and installation artist, Yasmin Hernandez was born and raised in Brooklyn. She attended the LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts in Manhattan and earned a BFA in painting at Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art and Planning. An art critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer, once described her work as "the harshest voice" of a group exhibition. In response, the artist explains, "my work seeks to unveil what has been suppressed by colonialism and racism." The daughter of Puerto Rican parents, she finds her inspiration in her cultural identity. "Complex themes are explored in my work, where I utilize aesthetic principles hailing from my Indigenous, African and Spanish spiritual and cultural ancestries." In 1996, she received a grant from the Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA). Her painting series, Realidades de Quisqueya, inspired by a trip to the Dominican Republic, is on permanent exhibition at the Cornell Latino Studies Program Offices. In 2000, she was invited by the CCA to participate in a group exhibition at the Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, NY where she created a site-specific installation, Alma Boricua: Gods Santos and Ancestors. Her art website www.yasminhernandez.com, averaging 20,000 monthly hits since its debut in the summer of 2002, attracts art lovers and individuals that feel a connection to the themes expressed in her work. Yasmin continues to exhibit and present her work at a variety of galleries and universities. A firm believer that art is a vehicle to empower youth, she supplements her work as an artist by teaching cultural and studio art workshops for various youth programs in New York City.