LaShonda Cooks is a Dallas-based artist and writer who loves exploring cultural norms, identity and beauty through words and images. She received her BS from Babson College in 2010.   While there Cooks, the daughter of an art teacher, balanced her business education with her life-long interest in the arts, by working in the college’s ceramic studio and exploring color in glaze and underglaze tiles. Those color studies birthed her signature pointillist painting style that features short fluid strokes and multiple layers of colors. Portraiture is her specialty. She regularly captures the features and essence of clients for commission pieces of all sizes and depicts her favorite icons and influencers on canvas as well. Her work has been featured in the Hollister Gallery at Babson College, Babson Magazine, Beacon Gallery, Boston City Hall, the Martin Luther King DART Bus Stop, Forest Theater, 500X Gallery, MUCE Miami Campus, ArtCon, Conception Dallas Art Show, ArtLoveMagic, UrbanChatter Art Show, Moody Performance Hall, Latino Cultural Center, Illamar Galeria, St. Matthews Cathedral's Sundermann Gallery and the African American Museum of Dallas. More about LaShonda and her work can be found at www.shondasart.com.