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Nimah Gobir

is an artist and educator based in Oakland, California.

Nimah Gobir makes paintings about family, memory, and Black identity. She works from stories she’s heard and photos her family has kept, layering them with household textiles, embroidery, and expressive brushwork. 

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She is interested in how memory lives in objects, gestures, and rooms. Through portraits of her sister and herself getting their hair braided, or her parents seated on a hand-me-down couch, she tells stories that are both deeply specific and widely shared.

 

Gobir completed her undergraduate studies at Chapman University with a B.F.A. in Studio Art and B.A. in Peace Studies. She has an M.Ed from Harvard Graduate School of Education with a focus in Arts in Education. In 2020, she completed a fellowship with Emerging Artist Professionals SF-Bay Area. She has shown work at the Museum of the African Diaspora, SOMArts, The Growlery, Root Division where she was awarded the Blau-Gold Studio/Teaching fellowship. She is represented by Johansson Projects.

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For project inquiries // studio visits:
nimahgobir@gmail.com

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Recognition

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2026   Anderson Ranch Residency

2025   Fleishhacker Foundation Eureka Fellowship Nominee

2024   Bennet Prize Finalist

2024   SFMOMA SECA Finalist

2024   Recology Artist Residency

2024   Headlands Center for the Arts Tournesol Awardee

2024     Museum of the African Diaspora Emerging Artist Program

2022     Fleishhacker Foundation Eureka Fellowship Nominee

2019     Emerging Artist Professionals Fellowship

2018     The Growlery Artist Residency

2018     Blau Gold Fellow Studio-Artist Fellowship

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2024     FOG Art + Design Fair, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA

2024     So Far, So Good, Recology, San Francisco, CA

2023     Holding Space, Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA 

2022     Spools, Johansson Projects, Oakland, CA

2021     Old House, FM Oakland, Oakland, CA

2019     Tender-headed and Other Works, The Growlery, San Francisco, CA

2015     I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!, Guggenheim Gallery, Orange, CA

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Selected Group Exhibitions

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2024     Minted, Tinted, Johansson Projects, Oakland, CA

2023     Facing Home, Euphrat Museum of Art

2023     The Black Woman is God: Motherhood, San Francisco, CA

2023     Platform by David Zwirner

2022     20-Year Anniversary Alumni Exhibition, San Francisco, CA

2021     The Black Woman is God, San Francisco, CA

2020     Until It Shatters, San Francisco, CA

2018     Non-Sterile Art Happenings, Cambridge, MA

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© 2023 by Nimah Gobir

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