Jamal Cyrus (b. 1973, Houston, TX) lives and works in Houston. He received his BFA from the University of Houston in 2004 and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008. In 2005, he attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He was an Artist in Residence at Artpace San Antonio and has won several awards, including the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. He is a member of the artist collective Otabenga Jones and Associates, and he has participated in national and international exhibitions, including Day for Night, the 2006 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and shows at the Station Museum in Houston (2004), The Office Baroque Gallery in Antwerp (2007), the Menil Collection in Houston (2007), The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC, The California African American Museum, Los Angeles (all 2008), The Kitchen in New York (2009) the Museum of London Docklands, London (2009), The New Museum, New York (2011), The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (2012), Studio Museum, Harlem (2013), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2014), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago (2015).

As a member of the collective Otabenga Jones and Associates, he has exhibited at Clementine Gallery in New York (2006), the Menil Collection in Houston (2007), The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC, The California African American Museum, Los Angeles (all 2008), The Lawndale Art Center and Project Row Houses, Houston (2014).  His work has been reviewed in Artlies, The Houston Chronicle, Houston Magazine, and The New York Times.