Nimah Gobir
is an artist and educator based in Oakland, California.
Through paintings and installations, her work primarily explores the nuances and shared experiences of being Black. She draws on photo references collected from both family and personal archives.
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.
For project inquiries // studio visits:
nimahgobir@gmail.com
Artist Statement
My work explores how I came to inherit the complexities and nuances of my Black identity from my family. My figurative paintings capture the expressiveness of a face in reaction or at rest and how bodies accommodate and respond to other bodies in space. Artworks source my siblings’ and Nigerian-born parents’ memories while honoring their individual experiences and essential humanity. I draw from personal and autobiographical histories to imbue paintings with images that are at once tender and powerful. Each painting expresses the way family members and loved ones’ relationships are reflected in one another and the way that their everyday habits shape and enliven their living spaces.
Composed with expressive brushwork, hand-stitched embroidery, and household textiles, my work layers multiple textures into intimate domestic portraits. My use of found fabrics evokes hand-me-down clothes, quilting material. The textiles intentionally feature repetitive patterns to mirror the way homes, relationships, and memory take on a banality while being uniquely dear to each person. Through scenes of my sister and I getting our hair braided as children or my parents posed on a couch covered in the patina of early adulthood, I contend with the enduring results of diaspora and the renewal of belonging to a home.
Recognition
Solo Exhibitions
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
2015 Best BFA Exhibition
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
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Sacred Terrain, Euphrat Museum of Art
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
2016 (En)gendered (In)equity, Los Angeles, CA
2014 Dissected, Guggenheim Gallery, Orange, CA