Quilted portraits of love, resistance and self with Bisa Butler

You’re All I Need: quilted portraits of love, resistance and self determination

Through her dynamic, celebratory quilted portraits of people of African decent , Bisa Butler (b. 1973, Orange, NJ) investigates the purposes and potential of portraiture within the Black historical narrative. Butler's influences range widely from personal family scrapbooks to American folk traditions and AfriCOBRA philosophies. Although her finished works are made entirely of textiles, Butler approaches the medium from a painterly perspective. Sourcing imagery mainly from photographs, she uses layered fabrics and quilting to create unique compositions, psychological depth and detailed textures that she found missing from her paintings. By returning to textiles, Butler has reconnected with her family's history since it was her grandmother and mother who taught her to sew.

Bisa Butler lives in South Orange, New Jersey and has a studio in Jersey City. Butler earned her BFA in painting at Howard University, Washington, D.C. in 1995 and holds a MAT in teaching art from Montclair State University, New Jersey. Her work has been exhibited widely, both domestically and internationally. Bisa was named an honorary doctorate of letters from Bloomfield College and recently received the inaugural Faith in the Arts Award.

In 2020, Butler had her first institutional solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work can be found in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Pérez Art Museum, Miami. The World Is Yours, Butler’s first solo exhibition with Jeffrey Deitch, in 2023 in New York, was enthusiastically received and attracted thousands of visitors. Her work All Power to the People is now a part of the permanent collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

The presentation will be take place in the Koret Auditorium at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Attendance in person is free.

Eventbrite tickets are for those who cannot attend in person and would like to view the live Zoom broadcast.

A recording will be available for 14 days following the talk.

All Power To The People (after Man with Afro, San Francisco, California, by Leon A. Borensztein, 1984) , 2023
Printed cotton, printed synthetic, synthetic lamé, cotton velvet, synthetic net, vinyl; quilted and appliquéd 114 x 67 in. (289.561 x 170.18 cm).
Museum purchase, Textile Art Trust Fund and donations from Bettina S. Bryant, Joyce Dostale, and other textile arts supporters 2023.65.

©️ Bisa Butler. Photograph by Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

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