A Talk on Quilted Portraits with Artist Bisa Butler
Bisa Butler, All Power To The People (after Man with Afro, San Francisco, California, by Leon A. Borensztein) (detail), 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). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Textile Art Trust Fund and donations from Bettina S. Bryant, Joyce Dostale, and other textile arts supporters
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. Her work All Power To The People (after Man with Afro, San Francisco, California, by Leon A. Borensztein, 1984) is now a part of the permanent collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
About the artist
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, DC in 1995 and holds a MAT in teaching art from Montclair State University, New Jersey. Bisa was named an honorary doctorate of letters from Bloomfield College and recently received the inaugural Faith in the Arts Award. Her work has been exhibited both domestically and internationally, and can be found in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Ticket info
The lecture is free and open to the public. Virtual tickets are also available for purchase. A recording will be available for 14 days following the talk.
Contact
Textile Arts Council
TAC@Famsf.org
Sponsors
This talk is made possible with the generous support of The Carol Walter Sinton Fund for Fiber Arts Studies. It is organized by the Textile Arts Council, the curatorial support group of the Costume and Textile Arts department at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
