Doriyan Coleman (b.1996) is a Cleveland-based Street Photographer, Writer, and Educator. His work has been exhibited by The Cleveland Museum of Art (2026), University Circle (2025-2026), Cleveland Play House (May 2025), and LAND Studio through ongoing acquisitions.

As the TeachArtsOhio Artist-In-Residence (2022-2023) and University Circle’s Artist-In-Residence (2025-2026), he’s taught innovative, insightful photography programs to middle schoolers and community elders alike.

He photographs the streets Cleveland to document the lyrical poetry of human experience. Through subtle gestures, nature's interplays of light, and the built environment, his work explores themes such as selfhood, community, and the sublimity of the ordinary.

Doriyan believes that a street in Cleveland carries the same artistic value as anywhere else, and that within each passerby is a world worth witnessing. Oscillating between black-and-white and color imagery, his unscripted approach to shared spaces finds truth in unguarded moments.

He was shaped by the tradition of humanist photographers like Gordon Parks and Dorothea Lange who understood the camera as a moral instrument, and Harlem Renaissance painters like Archibald Motley who captured the energy of city spaces. Cleveland itself — its textures, its people, and its refusal to be anything other than what it is, has been the incubator of his visual identity.

He photographs because powerful stories reside in the mundane. His prints, exhibitions, and books are how those moments live on. Through his physical practice, he creates communal spaces where people gather around shared experience, and fine art that can be owned, returned to, and passed down with care and accessibility.

As an Educator, he’s taught at the middle, high school, and community levels, designing programs for Tri-C, University Circle, and Urban Community School. He leverages the classroom as a venue for community-building, social emotional learning, and creative mastery.

Doriyan firmly believes that through photography, education, and the humanities, we can see each other with greater understanding, and jointly reflect on the most meaningful aspects of our existence.