Ja' Licia Gainer is working toward her MA in art history in the School of Visual Studies at the University of Missouri. She's interested in learning about African and African American artists who haven't been recognized in the subject's history. 

After Gainer earned her BA in Art History from the University of Missouri last year, she realized she wanted to purse graduate school at Mizzou to continue her education. Her focus is on museum studies and research on African and African American subjects in artwork, uncovering the reasons how and why they were drawn or painted the way they were by European, European American, and even early African American artists in early centuries. 

Following the completion of the grad program, Gainer plans to enter into the Romare Bearden Graduate Museum Fellowship in the Saint Louis Art Museum with the ultimate goal of becoming a museum curator. 

Besides her research interests, Gainer loves to paint, particularly with abstract and figures, with the oil medium. 

"Through oil paint I can highlight texture and color with an array of silhouettes. My goal with my art practice is to tell uplifting visual stories of black women by combining figuration and palette knife technique," she says.