While at Howard, Butler was mentored by members of AfriCOBRA. Using the Kool-Aid colors of the Black Power art movement also serves to capture the “soul and energy” of the person Butler is depicting. Color serves to convey the emotions of the individuals in her quilts rather than their actual complexions. īutler typically works in bright jewel tones rather than representational colors to depict skin tone. From these scraps the African American quilt aesthetic came into being.My own pieces are reminiscent of this tradition, but I use African fabrics from my father’s homeland of Ghana, batiks from Nigeria, and prints from South Africa." She has also been inspired by the figurative textile works of Faith Ringgold. Enslaved people were not given large pieces of fabric and had to make do with the scraps of cloth that were left after clothing wore out. She explains in her artist statement: "African Americans have been quilting since we were brought to this country and needed to keep warm. Through her quilts, Butler aims to “tell stories that may have been forgotten over time.” Butler often uses kente cloth and African wax printed fabrics in her quilts, so her subjects are "adorned with and made up of the cloth of our ancestor." īutler's quilts both heavily incorporate African textiles a well as expand on a rich African American quilting tradition. Artistry Don't Tread on Me, God Damn, Let's Go! - The Harlem Hellfighters (2021) by Bisa Butler at the Renwick Gallery in 2022 She now lives and works in West Orange, New Jersey. Īlong with being a practicing artist, Butler taught art in the Newark Public Schools for over a decade. After that class, I made a quilt for my grandmother on her deathbed, and I have been quilting ever since." When she replicated her grandmother's wedding photo in quilt form, a piece entitled "Francis and Violette" for a final project, both she and her professor recognized that she had created an entirely new form of quilting. She said in an interview, "As a child, I was always watching my mother and grandmother sew, and they taught me. There, she took a Fiber Art class that inspired her choice of quilting as an artistic medium. īutler went on to complete a master's degree in art education from Montclair State University in 2004. She did start working with fabric, making collages on canvas. Her undergraduate degree was in painting, but she has stated that she never really connected with the medium. īutler 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. Her interest in art can be traced back to preschool she won an art competition when she was four years old. When Butler was born, her older sister couldn’t pronounce her name and shortened it to “Ba-Bisa” and then Bisa. The youngest child in her family, Butler had three siblings. Her mother is a French teacher from New Orleans and her father, a college president, was born in Ghana. Early life īisa Butler, born Mailissa Yamba Butler, was born in Orange, New Jersey, grew up in South Orange, and graduated from Columbia High School in 1991. With a multi-year wait list for private commissions, one of Butler's quilts sold at auction in 2021 for $75,000 USD. In 2020, she was commissioned to quilt cover images for Time magazine, including the "Person of the Year" issue and its "100 Women of the Year" issue. She has also exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Epcot Center, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and many other venues. Her works now count among the permanent collections at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Art Institute of Chicago, Pérez Art Museum Miami and about a dozen other art museums nationwide. She is known for her vibrant, quilted portraits celebrating Black life, portraying both everyday people and notable historical figures. Although quilting has long been considered a craft, her interdisciplinary methods - which create quilts that look like paintings - have catapulted quilting into the field of fine art. Bisa Butler (born Mailissa Yamba Butler in 1973) is an American fiber artist who has created a new genre of quilting that has transformed the medium.
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