The other side of her family dressed up in woven African print and Dutch-African wax fabrics. Growing up in Louisiana, she saw women go out in silk, satin and lace, while men wore suits made from gabardine or fine wool. Her mother was from New Orleans and her father was from Ghana. She layers electric colored kente cloth and other African fabrics on top of one another to remake old black-and-white photos into technicolor mosaics.īutler describes her work as sewing the Black diaspora together within a quilt. Her quilts have been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Smithsonian - her new exhibit up now at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in New York is called ' The World is Yours.'Īt her art studio in South Orange, New Jersey, Butler creates larger-than-life images out of scraps of cloth. She transforms the traditional craft of quilting into a mosaic of fabric to create portraits of Black American history. Hear this interview on our podcast, Here & Now Anytime.Īrtist Bisa Butler creates vibrant portraits with needle and thread, weaving culture, art and history into electrifying quilts.īutler’s pieces meld old and new, past and future, history and hope.

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