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MoAD’s most recent Emerging Artists Program exhibition is now up through Aug. 20 and features the work of Oakland-based artist Nimah Gobir.
Titled “Holding Space,” the solo exhibition unveils a collection of intimate paintings that consider home, interiority, and belonging in the context of diasporic narratives. Through depictions of her family members and loved ones in everyday situations, “Holding Space” pauses for a poetic reflection on placemaking.
Embroidery, pattern, and textile motifs convey the layered expressive textures inherent to family homes. This exhibition is a meditation on how homes are places that hold secrets, histories, and vestiges of loved ones.
The artist’s eloquent statement about the exhibition and specific works is below my signature on this email so you can read more from her directly.
Gobir, born in Los Angeles, California in 1993, is the daughter of two Nigerian immigrants. Raised by a single mother and a textbook middle child, she creates art that explores her identity as a Black woman.
Through paintings and installations, her work teases out both the nuances and shared experiences of being Black. Gobir has mounted recent solo exhibitions at MoAD and The Growlery, San Francisco; Johansson Projects, FM Oakland in Oakland and the Guggenheim Gallery, Orange, California.
She has been included in group exhibitions at Root Division and SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco.
Gobir completed her BFA in Studio Art and her BA in Peace Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California, and earned her MEd from Harvard Graduate School of Education with a focus on Arts in Education. She lives and works in Oakland, California.
On Saturday, July 15, Gobir will be in conversation with Kija Lucas for an in-person artist talk at MoAD from 3-4:30 pm. More about that event at: https://www.moadsf.org/event/artist-talk-eap-presents-nimah-gobir-in-conversation-with-kija-lucas
A portion of Gobir’s artist statement is below:
“Holding Space” unveils a suite of paintings featuring figurative portraits, embroidery, and textiles. These works uplift home and belonging in the context of immigrant narratives. Displaying a range of small- and large-scale works, this exhibition highlights paintings of my family, including me, my siblings, relatives, and Nigerian-born parents. As a result, the work is autobiographical in nature, drawing from my history as well as memories from those I hold dear.
“Through depictions of my family members and loved ones in everyday situations, I humanize the Black experience and pay homage to Black families. This body of work examines how generations of family members have immigrated to create homes where they have settled, and how my relations, while scattered across the world far from their origins, carry the stories of those who came before them.
“In this exhibition, I invite viewers to grapple with the intimacy of being in someone’s home and entering a space that holds the residue of a family’s presence and everyday habits. The clutter, mix-matched patterns, and textures that make up a home are on display in paintings that show interior spaces.
A couple of images of work on the exhibition page at:
https://www.moadsf.org/exhibitions/holding-space-by-nimah-gobir
Source from MoAD’s media relations office
