Meet Ameera Pernebsati Lys
Ameera Pernebsati Lys, LCSW (she/her/hers) is a Haitian-American visual artist and social worker whose practice is a vital exploration of heritage, resilience, and collective humanity. Working across fiber and mixed media—including textile design, indigo vat dyeing, Japanese shibori, collage, stamping, painting, sculpture, quilting, and jewelry design—she creates works that serve as protective talismans and narratives of preservation.
Inspired by her Haitian heritage, traditional African spirituality, and a direct engagement with racial injustice, Lys’s work is a material response to cultural erasure. Her transformative use of indigo and symbolic material layering draws directly from Haiti’s revolutionary history of insisting on human dignity.
Her solo exhibitions have been presented at the Haitian-American Museum of Chicago, the Riverside Arts Center, Lys Arts Gallery, and the Alliance Français de Chicago. She has participated in group exhibitions at the Hyde Park Art Center and the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. Her work is held in the permanent collection of the Haitian American Museum of Chicago.
As a dedicated teaching artist, Lys has taught indigo and shibori workshops since 2018 at institutions including the Hyde Park Art Center, Riverside Arts Center, Marwen & Lacey K-8 Academy in Little Rock, AR. Bridging her dual professions, she has created and facilitated trainings on social equity and expressive arts for the University of Chicago Collegiate Scholars Program, Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, Pivot Collaborative, Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and EL Education, and has guest lectured at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her collaborative community projects include work with the Museum of Science and Industry, the Haitian American Museum of Chicago, and the Coalition of Haitian-American Organizations in the Chicagoland Area.
A Chicago native, Lys holds a B.A. from Carleton College and an M.S.W. from the Smith College School for Social Work. She is an initiate in Kemetic and Dogon philosophy, healing, and spirituality at Kebtah. Through art, education, and advocacy, Ameera Pernebsati Lys weaves a practice dedicated to protection, remembrance, and profound cultural continuity.
indigo oxidation process
indigo student with completed textile
8minutes46seconds series, mixed media, 2020 Cindy Lys - Black Creativity Exhibition Museum of Science and Industry
Mary Artist Young dyeing in an indigo vat
Open the Gate, mixed media sculpture, 2018 CIndy Lys - Black Creativity Exhibition Museum of Science and Industry
Indigo workshop participant
Indigo oxidation process
indigo students dyeing textiles in dye vat
