Bisa Butler

She was born in Orange, New Jersey, grew up in South Orange, and graduated from Columbia High School in 1991.[3] Her mother is a French teacher from New Orleans and her father, a college president, was born in Ghana.[4] Butler majored in fine art and graduated cum laude from Howard University, where she studied the work of Romare Bearden, attended lectures by prominent black artists such as Lois Mailou Jones, and studied under lecturers such as Elizabeth Catlett, Jeff Donaldson, and Ernie Barnes.[5] Her undergraduate degree was in painting, but she has stated that she never really connected with the medium.[6] While pursuing a master's degree, she took a Fiber Art class that inspired her choice of quilting as an artistic medium. She said in an interview, "As a child, I was always watching my mother and grandmother sew, and they taught me. After that class, I made a quilt for my grandmother on her deathbed, and I have been quilting ever since."[2]

Butler earned a master's degree in art education from Montclair State University in 2004.[7] She taught art in the Newark Public Schools.[2] She now lives and works in Orange, New Jersey .[8]

Butler typically works in bright jewel tones rather than representational color.[8] While at Howard, Butler was mentored by members of AfriCOBRA and she has stated that her color scheme is in line with their aesthetic.[4] She has also been inspired by the figurative textile works of Faith Ringgold.[5] She has stated that her work is reminiscent of the African American quilting tradition originating from enslaved people using scraps of fabric to make quilts to stay warm. She often uses African fabrics in her work, so her subjects are "adorned with and made up of the cloth of our ancestor."[9] The artist likes her art to “tell stories that may have been forgotten over time.” [10]

Her quilts often feature portraits of famous figures in black history, such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Jackie Robinson, Frederick Douglass, and Josephine Baker. She uses a variety of patterned fabrics, which she carefully selects to reflect the subject's life, sometimes using clothing worn by the subject. Her portrait of Nina Simone, for example, is made of cotton, silk, velvet, and netting, while that of Jean-Michel Basquiat is made of leather, cotton, and vintage denim.[1] Along with her portraits of notable figures, Butler also creates pieces featuring everyday, unknown African American subjects that she bases off of found photographs. She describes her fascination for her nameless subjects' unknown stories: "I feel these people; I know these stories because I have grown up with them my whole life."[9] She strives "to bring as many of these unnamed peoples photos to the forefront" so "people will see these ordinary folks as deserving of a spotlight too."[6]

Her pieces are done in life scale in order "to invite the viewer to engage in dialogue--most figures look the viewers directly in their eyes."[9]

She has exhibited widely. In 2018 she exhibited at EXPO Chicago and was praised in Newcity[11] and the Chicago Reader.[12] In February 2019 her work was included along with that of Romare Bearden in The Art of Jazz, a Black History Month exhibition in Morristown, New Jersey.[13] Butler's quilts are featured in art books such as Journey of Hope: Quilts Inspired by President Barack Obama (2010)[14] and Collaborations: Two Decades of African American Art : Hearne Fine Art 1988-2008 (2008),[15] and on websites such as Blavity [1] and Colossal.[8] In 2019, she was a finalist for the Museum of Art and Design's Burke Prize.[16] Butler's first solo museum exhibition, "Bisa Butler: Portraits," was scheduled to be held at the Katonah Museum of Art from March 15 to June 14, 2020; however after temporarily closing due to health concerns the exhibition was extended to October 4, 2020.[17][18]

• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA[19]
• Art Institute of Chicago, IL[20]
• Newark Museum of Art, NJ[21]
• Orlando Museum of Art, FL[22]
• Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN[21]
• Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO[23]
• Mount Holyoke Art Museum, Hadley, MA[24]
• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO[25]
• 21c Museum of Art, Louisville, KY[26]
• Toledo Museum of Art, OH[27]

• Essex County College, Newark, NJ - 2003[21]
• Essex County College, Newark, NJ - 2004
• Organic Soul, NJ - 2006
• Home of Lonnie Austin show, solo exhibit - 2008
• Astahs Fine Art Gallery, Maplewood, NJ - 2008
• Quilt Me A Story, Bloomfield College, NJ - 2008
• Morristown Courthouse, Morristown, NJ - 2015
• Hearne fine art, Faces in Man Places - 2015
• NEWARK Academy, Livingston, NJ - 2015
• Domareki Gallery, Maplewood, NJ - 2015
• Firehouse Gallery, Valley Arts, Orange, NJ - 2015
• Richard Beavers Art Gallery, Brooklyn, NY - 2016
• The Lawrence Art Center, Lawrence, KS - 2017[21]
• "The Storm, The Whirlwind & The Eartquake" Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, NY - 2020[28]
• Bisa Butler, Katonah Museum of Art, NY - 2020[29]
• Bisa Butler, Art Institute of Chicago, IL - 2020 - 2021[30]

• Cover of Fiber Art Now magazine, Spring 2019
• Bisa Butler's Portraiture Quilts (BRIC TV, 2016) on YouTube
• "The Quilting Tradition". Black Art in America.
• "Artist Bisa Butler Stitches Together the African American Experience" Smithsonian Magazine, July 2020