Art

Oakland-Based Artist’s Work on Display at MoAD in S.F.

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.

Published

2 years ago

July 19, 2023

Oakland Post

Above, a panel of Nimah Gobir’s installation piece called “Tender-Headed.” Courtesy of MoAd.

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

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Activism

Griot Theater Company Presents August Wilson’s Work at Annual Oratorical Featuring Black Authors

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Published

3 months ago

February 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Late playwright August Wilson. Wikipedia photo.

By Godfrey Lee

Griot Theater Company will present their Fifth Annual Oratorical with August Wilson’s “Half a Century,” at the Belrose on 1415 Fifth Ave., in San Rafael near the San Rafael Public Library.

The performance explores the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson whose 10-play Century Cycle chronicles the African American experience across the 20^th century, with each play set in a different decade. “Half a Century” journeys through the final five plays of this monumental cycle, bringing Wilson’s richly woven stories to life in a way that celebrates history, resilience, and the human spirit.

Previous performance highlighting essential Black American authors included Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry with Langston Hughes.

The play will be performed at 3:00. p.m. on Feb. 20, 21, 22, 27, and 28 at 7:00 p.m., and on Feb. 23 at 3:00 p.m.

For more information, go to griottheatercompany.squarespace.com/productions-v2

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Activism

MLK Day of Service Volunteers Make Blankets and Art for Locals in Need

“Everyone has an opportunity to participate,” said Glenda Roberts, kinship support care program manager at CCYSB. “Our nonprofit organization and participants recognize how important it is to give back to the community and this is serving. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, ‘Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve.’”

Published

4 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy of the nonprofit.

By Kathy Chouteau
The Richmond Standard

The Contra Costa Youth Service Bureau (CCYSB) and Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church (BMBC) are collaborating with a team of volunteers for a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, Monday, Jan. 20 that will wrap the community’s most vulnerable people in warm blankets and provide them with an uplifting gift of art.

Volunteers will kick off their activities at BMBC at 11 a.m., making blankets for the unhoused people served by the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program (GRIP) and art for those in convalescence in Richmond.

Others will get to work preparing a lunch of chili, salad, a veggie tray, and water for participants, offered courtesy of CCYSB, while supplies last.

“People of all ages are welcome to participate in the MLK Day of Service,” said Roberts. Volunteers can RSVP via phone to Glenda Roberts at 510-215-4670, ext. 125.

CCYSB Boardmember Jackie Marston and her friends donated the materials and supplies to make the blankets and art projects. The nonprofit is also providing the day’s complimentary lunch, as well as employees to volunteer, under the direction of CCYSB Executive Director Marena Brown.

BMBC, led by Rev. Dr. Carole McKindley-Alvarez, is providing the facility for the event and volunteers from the church, which is located at 684 Juliga Woods St. in Richmond.

Located in Richmond, CCYSB is a nonprofit youth advocacy organization that serves eligible children, youth, and low-income families with a variety of wraparound services so they can thrive. Programs include academic achievement, youth mentorship, truancy prevention and direct response.

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Art

Vandalism at Richmond Ferry Terminal Saddens Residents

Residents have been lamenting the destruction online. Ellen Seskin posted photos of the vandalism to the Facebook group, Everybody’s Richmond, on Jan. 12, saying she encountered it while out on a walk. “It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

Published

4 months ago

January 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Graffiti mars the walkway at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Photo by Kathy Chouteau, The Richmond Standard.

The Richmond Standard

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” stated the post on NextDoor.

The post referenced images of graffiti at the Richmond Ferry Terminal. Not just on the terminal, but also on public artwork, on trail signs, on public benches and the boardwalk.

On Wednesday, the Standard stopped by to see it for ourselves. The good news was that it appears the graffiti on the terminal and on the artwork, called Changing Tide, have been cleaned for the most part. But graffiti remained abundant in the area around the relatively new ferry terminal, which opened to the public just six years ago.

Graffiti artists tagged benches and the boardwalk. Cars that had done doughnuts in the street marked the cul-de-sac just outside the historic Craneway Pavilion.

A ferry worker told us the graffiti had been there since before he started working for the ferry service about a week ago.

A member of the Army Corps of Engineers who did not want to be named in this report called the scene “sad,” as “they’d done such a nice job fixing it up.”

“It’s sad that all this money has been spent and hoodlums just don’t care and are destroying stuff,” he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how soon the graffiti would be removed. The Standard reported the graffiti to the city’s graffiti abatement hotline. We were prompted to leave a message reporting the address and location of the graffiti.

“It was on the sidewalk, the street, the doors to the ferry, even in the art installation and the ‘stone’ benches,” she said. “I reported it but knowing how slow they are about getting things done — I just know that the longer you leave graffiti, the more likely they are to spray it again.”

In the comment section responding to Seskin’s post, local attorney Daniel Butt questioned why there aren’t cameras in the area.

On Nextdoor, one resident suggested searching to see if the tags match any accounts on Instagram, hoping to identify the perpetrator.

On its website, the City of Richmond says residents should graffiti immediately call Public Works graffiti removal and/or Code Enforcement at 510-965-4905.

Kathy Chouteau contributed to this report.