On Saturday, February 13, please join Richard Beavers, owner and head curator of the Richard Beavers Gallery (formerly known as the House of Art Gallery) for the opening reception of "The People Could Fly: Royalty Without the Riches," an exhibition of the Quilts of Bisa Butler. She has shown her work from the Studio Museum in Harlem, to the California African American Museum in Los Angeles-just to name a few places. As thrilled as she was by the invitation from the Smithsonian, she still gets butterflies with each new exhibition. Her most prestigious exhibition was at the Smithsonian Institute in our nation's capital of Washington, D.C. ![]() Her exhibition, 'Bisa Butler: Portraits,' is now open. Her enthusiasm and stimulation from old photos has erupted into nationwide recognition for her gift, as exemplified through esteemed art exhibitions. Artist Bisa Butler stands with her piece 'The Warmth of Other Sons,' at the Art Institute of Chicago on Nov. Bisa says she's most inspired just from looking at old black and white photo albums, "I think they are very interesting". The motivation behind these extraordinaire pieces of art comes from African American society. Bisa is known for adding different types of fabrics to her art pieces-something she was moved to do from the collages of artist Romare Bearden. Bisa says her grandmother had given so much to her family, "this was one thing I could give her that was special." After that, she was bitten by the quilting bug and became inspired to do more. Her first quilt was based on a small photo booth picture of her grandparents, Francis and Violette Hammond. Quilting became her genre when she constructed a quilt for her ailing grandmother. She went on to earn a master's degree in Art Education from Montclair State University in 2004. ![]() She graduated from Howard University with a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts, concentrating in painting. Art Institute reopens with its own Van Goghs plus Monet, Bisa Butler exhibitions. Bisa Butler: Portraits, 'the first solo museum exhibition of the artist’s work' which will feature over twenty. Say the people who could fly kept their power, although they shed their wingsĪs told on The Sophisticate Life: Using different fibers, textured fabrics and swatches of cloth, African-American artist Bisa Butler captures an expression, or tells a story with just one piece of quilted art.īisa was raised in South Orange, NJ, the youngest of three children born to a French teacher and a college president. The 22 quilts in Butlers current exhibition are nothing less than dazzling. Now that you know that the exhibit has been extended to September 2021, listen to Bisa Butler talk about the inspirations behind some of her work as she tours her own exhibit, Bisa Butler: Portraits, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Say that long ago in Africa, some of the people knew magic.Īnd they could walk up on the air like climbin' on a gate.Īnd they fly like blackbirds over the fields.īlack, shiny wings flappin' against the blue up there. ![]() Through her combination of subjects and materials, Butler represents and meditates upon the diasporic nature of Black history in each portrait.They say the people could fly. The fabrics chosen for her textile portraits also speak to a shared African diasporic history many of the African-printed fabrics she employs are popular in West African countries, including Ghana, where Butler’s father is from. She looks to photographs to inform her compositions and figural choices, she layers fabrics as a painter might layer glazes, and she uses thread to draw, adding fine detail and texture with her stitching. ![]() The complementary layers of narrative and materials create an immersive, dazzling, and compelling aesthetic experience,” says Erica Warren, Associate Curator of Textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago.īutler’s methods remain interdisciplinary even though her finished works are exclusively fabric. This surprise paired with the arresting faces of her subjects fuels even closer looking. “The vibrancy and scale of Butler’s work really captivates viewers, and once they are pulled in, they experience an often startling realization regarding materiality that is, they discover what they are looking at is fabric rather than paint.
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