DiQuan Forcell (b. Texas; raised in Louisiana) is a painter whose work contends with themes of preservation, memory, and resistance against erasure. A graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana (B.A. in Art, 2015), Forcell lives and works in New Orleans, where he serves as Exhibitions Manager and Curatorial Assistant at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans. He joined the institution in 2018 as a Patron Services Associate and was promoted to Exhibitions Manager in 2025.

Working primarily in acrylic, Forcell’s practice unfolds as a sustained meditation on mortality and modernity—an inquiry sparked by the passing of his grandmother in 2017. His portraits frequently depict the deceased, positioning them within spaces of reverence rather than loss. Through this approach, Forcell transforms painting into an act of both remembrance and resistance, preserving lives that might otherwise fade from collective memory.

Influenced by the chiaroscuro and emotional gravitas of the Baroque period, as well as the monumental portraiture of Kehinde Wiley and the psychological depth of Amy Sherald, Forcell merges classical drama with a distinctly contemporary sensibility. His compositions balance shadow and illumination to interrogate visibility, identity, and the tension between presence and absence.

In The Black Reliquary Series (2025), Forcell assumes the role of what he calls a “mortician of art,” crafting acrylic portraits on plywood shaped into small coffins. The series honors the departed while reimagining death as a site of transformation and continued presence. In The New Baroque Series (2024), Forcell more overtly embraces his historical influences, bridging the grandeur of Baroque painting with the narrative immediacy of the present.

Forcell’s work has been exhibited throughout New Orleans at the Contemporary Arts Center, Antenna Gallery, Good Children Gallery, the Helis Foundation John Scott Center, and the André Cailloux Center. As both artist and curator, he remains deeply invested in shaping the city’s contemporary visual culture. His curatorial projects include Untitled (Invisible Identities) (2023), Untitled: Beyond Opacity (2024), and K20: When the Water Met the Door (2025). As Assistant Curator, he has also contributed to major institutional exhibitions such as Seeing Black: Gestures of Refusal (2024) and From the Storms of Our Souls (2025).

Through his dual practice as artist and curator, DiQuan Forcell continues to build spaces that honor remembrance, amplify visibility, and challenge the boundaries between the living and the remembered.