3/24/2023 0 Comments Bisa butlerHer mother, from New Orleans, was raised in Morocco. Many come from Ghana, her father's homeland, and other African countries. Like a painter, Butler selects her palette –– a palette that consists of fabrics. It is an in-depth artistic effort, which means Butler will spend about 200 hours creating a quilt. So I want that to be acknowledged and I'll choose different fabrics depending on what the story is." "It is known that we have lineage and we come from people. "I'm thinking about color as a way to express inner emotions or personality traits and I'm selecting African fabric to talk about the fact that we are of African descent and we have a long history that was taken," Butler says. Like a painter, Butler selects her palette using fabrics from Ghana, her father's homeland, as well as other African countries. So this was the quilt that I made, in a way, to reinforce to myself that the kids would be fine." "He even has on a little cap, like he's an officer, but he is. "He's looking down his eyes at us," Butler says. The young boy in charge, holding his school mates back from crossing the street, wears a Nigerian batik print shirt. The life-size figures pulsate with their own individual vibrant hues. She worked on this quilt during her last year of teaching art to high schoolers in 2018. Her portrait of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai was featured as a cover for Time Magazine’s special issue honoring the 100 Women of the Year in 2020."Somehow I feel like they're calling out to me," Butler says. In 2019 Butler was a finalist for the Museum of Arts and Design Burke Prize. Her works are included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago Minneapolis Institute of Art Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Newark Museum of Art The Toledo Museum of Art and Orlando Museum of Art, among others. After that class, I made a portrait quilt for my grandmother on her deathbed, and I have been making art quilts ever since.”īisa Butler was a high school art teacher for 13 years 10 in the Newark Public Schools and 3 at her own alma mater, Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey.īutler’s work was most recently the focus of a solo exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art in New York that will subsequently travel to the Art Institute of Chicago. “As a child, I was always watching my mother and grandmother sew, and they taught me. While in the process of obtaining her Masters degree Butler took a Fiber Arts class where she had an artistic epiphany and she finally realized how to express her art. She began to experiment with fabric as a medium and became interested in collage techniques.īutler then went on to earn a Masters in Art from Montclair State University in 2005. It was during her education at Howard that Butler was able to refine her natural talents under the tutelage of lecturers such as Lois Mailou Jones, Elizabeth Catlett, Jeff Donaldson and Ernie Barnes. Butler’s artistic talent was first recognized at the age of four, when she won a blue ribbon in an art competition.įormally trained, Butler graduated Cum Laude from Howard University with a Bachelor’s in Fine Art degree. She was raised in South Orange, the youngest of four siblings. The show features Butler’s vivid and larger-than-life quilts that capture African American identity and culture.īisa Butler was born in Orange, NJ, the daughter of a college president and a French teacher. It will then travel to the Art Institute of Chicago. On August 13, American Federation of Arts curator Michele Wije held a lively conversation with celebrated artist Bisa Butler, a textile artist who creates beautiful quilted portraits.īisa Butler: Portraits is the first solo museum exhibition of the artist’s work, curated by Wije and currently on view at the Katonah Museum of Art through October 4, 2020.
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