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Nari Ward vividly remembers when he became an artist. As an immigrant from Jamaica trying to find his place, he recounts seeing a photo of Santa Claus on a blackboard at school. Ward drew a replica and the other kids came over, intrigued, and said, “The new guy is an artist.” Ward claimed that title. “It was a space where I could be different, but there was an excuse for why I was different,” he said.
The Los Angeles-bas...