ADIA MILLETT | A Women’s Thing | Morton Fine Art | Future Fair

FUTURE FAIR

Mixed-media artist Adia Millett removes, cuts and sews to unfold stories

May 22, 2023 by A Women’s Thing

PORTRAIT OF ADIA MILLETT. RIGHT: BLACK MOON, 2020 30.5 X 30.5 IN. COTTON, UPHOLSTERY FABRIC, SILK. COURTESY OF ADIA MILLET.

Adia Millett is a mixed-media artist who probes the intersections of identity, history, and interconnectivity with a range of experimental techniques. She employs textiles, sculpture, paintings, wood and glass as mediums to craft works that reveal stories of impermanence. Millett’s works are composed of abstract geometric shapes that evoke movement and transformation. She juxtaposes forms that expand and collapse against glittery backgrounds and hint at landscape and structural elements, such as rooftops, windows, and doors. 

Her paintings reflect the dynamic and complex nature of personal identity and its relation to the environment. Millett’s textiles challenge the conventional boundaries of quilt-making by stitching together culturally diverse fabrics. Millett also incorporates historical iconography into her quilts, honoring the past while inviting the viewer to contemplate renewal. 

Adia Millett holds a BFA from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA from the California Institute of Arts. She has shown her work at prominent institutions such as the New Museum and P.S. 1 in New York and is currently based in Oakland, California. 

We spoke with Millett about the works she presented the week before last at Future Fair 2023 in New York City, her views on AI art, and her upcoming projects.

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Can you tell us about the pieces you were showing at Future Fair this year?

‘Black Moon’ and ‘Gold Moon’ were actually part of an older piece titled ‘Beneath You,’ which was a collection of culturally diverse fabrics. I cut that piece apart (something I often do). Structurally I wanted to take the square grid apart and construct something more organic. The process felt like I was channeling the moon as she gave birth to the embryo forms, ‘Black Moon’ and ‘Gold Moon.’

GOLD MOON, 2020 30.5 X 30.5 IN. COTTON, UPHOLSTERY FABRIC, SILK. RIGHT: DETAIL.

GOLD ROOF, 2019 40 X 30 IN. ACRYLIC, GOLD LEAF, WOOD AND PLASTIC ON WOOD PANEL. RIGHT: DETAIL.

What inspires you to create?

I’m inspired by transitions, change in everything … nature, perspective of ourselves and the people around us. I’m inspired by our connection to our ancestors we’ve never met and our ability to reinvent truth. I’m inspired by how each unique thing, person, idea connects to every other thing, person or idea. 

You share the process of your work extensively in videos on Instagram and on your website. What inspires you to show more of the background that goes into your work? 

So much art today is not actually fabricated by the artist themselves. They come up with an idea and have someone else make it. The labor, the craft is where we as artists become conduits to spirit, to intuition, to the beauty that lies in imperfection and happenstance. The process is also showing a parallel to how I think we should live. We should be willing to create who we are and then take ourselves apart and create a more expansive bolder version of ourselves.

What do you think of AI art where a human creates a prompt for the AI to generate an image? Do you think this new medium is authentic and valuable?

Is anything really authentic? Everything derives from something else and AI is a very obvious example of that. I think AI art holds value in that it is a signifier of our time and it will continue to evolve. When I think about the artwork I’m drawn to, it’s work that is created by human hands, work that asks the viewer to use their imagination and emotional intelligence to identify with the content of the piece.

SO MUCH ART TODAY IS NOT ACTUALLY FABRICATED BY THE ARTIST THEMSELVES. THEY COME UP WITH AN IDEA AND HAVE SOMEONE ELSE MAKE IT. THE LABOR, THE CRAFT IS WHERE WE AS ARTISTS BECOME CONDUITS TO SPIRIT, TO INTUITION, TO THE BEAUTY THAT LIES IN IMPERFECTION AND HAPPENSTANCE.

If you could give your past self one piece of advice, what would it be? 

Don’t be quiet. Take every rejection as a learning opportunity. If someone is underestimating your value, say no and ask for what you want. Be in your Power.

If you weren’t an artist, what would you do? 

I tried being the other things and I realized being an artist is everything I want to be.

Tell us about your next big project.

I’m currently working on an upcoming exhibition at the Institute for Contemporary Art in San Jose. This show is inspired by an incredible collection of quilts from the Berkeley Art Museum and Film Archive. The show tells a visual story of the parallels between ancient warriors and crafts women. In collaboration with dancers, sound healers, quilters and crafters I will be showing new painting, textiles, sculpture and glass work.

Available Artwork by ADIA MILLETT

The Art Newspaper | Future Fair | Eto Otitigbe | Adia Millett | Morton Fine Art

Abstraction is ascendant at New York’s Future Fair

The fair, a haven for fresh painting, may signal a coming shift in the market power dynamic between representation and abstraction

Benjamin Sutton

11 May 2023

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Visitors during Future Fair 2023’s VIP previewKeenon Perry

At the Future Fair, which opened to VIPs on Wednesday (10 May) for its third in-person edition, painting is without question the dominant medium. But what manner of painting—the bright, figurative style that has dominated the contemporary art market for the better part of a decade, or more process-driven abstraction—is up for debate. There are strong examples of both, and plenty of sculpture too, but amid the stands filled with canvases featuring popping portraits, irreverent domestic scenes and stylised art historical allusions, abstract works may invite closer inspection and more sustained interest.

“I’m excited for the pendulum to swing back to abstraction,” says Joey Piziali, the director and co-founder of San Francisco-based Romer Young Gallery, whose stand features works by an intergenerational cohort of “three women at the forefront of abstraction”, as he put it. The presentation spans a fluid and gestural circular canvas by Pamela Jorden, Bird’s Eye (2023), smaller untitled works by Nancy White with interlocking shapes rendered in a more muted palette, and a hard-edged geometric composition in blue and red pigmented plaster by Elise Ferguson priced at $24,000.

Elise Ferguson, Walsh L, 2023Courtesy the artist and Romer Young Gallery

“Abstraction is so generous, there’s nothing didactic about it,” Piziali says. “Whatever you’re seeing in the work, you’re bringing to it.”

On the stand of Washington, DC-based gallery Morton Fine Art, visitors might see ancient geometries or futuristic architectural schema in works by Eto Otitigbe. His pieces, on view alongside mixed media works by Adia Millett, are actually bas-relief sculptures in the guise of paintings. Each aluminium or Valchromat panel is engraved with a precise geometric structure related to Otitigbe’s public art practice, to which he then applies dyes or acrylic paint.

“I see these as experimental drawings,” the artist says. “They’re all about the push and pull between the rigidity of the engraving and then the way the ink moves across the panel, which I can’t completely control.” His works are priced between $2,750 for the smaller panels and $16,500 for the large diptych anchoring the stand.

Eto Otitigbe, Dr. Nova (diptych), 2022Courtesy the artist and Morton Fine Art

A different kind of push and pull is at work in the dazzling acrylic, gouache and ink works on paper by Rafael Plaisant filling the walls of New York-based High Noon gallery’s stand, which also features bewitching ceramic busts by Elisa Soliven. Plaisant’s abstract compositions toggle between ancient, contemporary and futuristic forms, evoking traditional scroll paintings and mandalas, Russian Constructivism, psychedelic poster art and science-fiction imagery, among other touchstones.

“Rafael’s practice started out as a fantasy of building the perfect skateboard ramp, which led him to study architecture,” says High Noon’s owner and director Jared Linge, who first discovered the Brazilian artist’s work at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic through the viral #ArtistSupportPledge social media campaign. “At the time his work was selling for $200, which felt like the wrong price.” At Future Fair, Plaisant’s work is still priced affordably, between $1,800 and $3,500 depending on size.

Rafael Plaisant, Proposito, 2023Courtesy the artist and High Noon, New York

“For a younger fair, Rebeca [Laliberte] and Rachel [Mijares Fick] really care about supporting galleries and showing work at accessible price points,” Linge adds, referring to Future Fair’s co-founders, who have made a supportive financial model and a cooperative spirit cornerstones of the fair.

The fair certainly seemed to benefit from being the first out of the gate amid New York’s spring art market marathon, hosting a buzzy preview the day before Tefaf New York and Independent, and before the auction houses kicked off their major seasonal sales. With 56 exhibitors, some of them sharing joint stands and others showing in lounge-like spaces or open thoroughfares, the fair has an inviting, unpretentious atmosphere that feels all the more welcoming given its location in the heart of Chelsea, a gallery district increasingly dominated by a couple dozen imposing international dealerships.

Or, as one VIP in line for the bar during Wednesday’s preview was overheard putting it: “I feel like Nada, Independent and Untitled had an orgy, and Future Fair is their lovechild.”

Available artwork by ETO OTITIGBE

Available artwork by ADIA MILLETT

di Rosa Museum of Contemporary Art | ADIA MILLETT | A Force of Nature

JULY 23 – OCTOBER 30, 2022

adia millett: a force of nature | opening july 23

“the land at di rosa… changing like the direction of the seasonal smoke, reveals to us that with death comes new life.” -adia millett

Adia Millett: A Force of Nature presents new paintings, textiles and sculptural installations by the Oakland-based artist, created in response to di Rosa’s distinctive landscape. “The land at di Rosa,” Millett writes, “lush with soaring vultures, cracks in the decomposing earth, traces of snakeskin, and endless layers of shadows, arouse our creative minds to remember where we come from. The multitude of colors, changing like the direction of the seasonal smoke, reveals to us that with death comes new life.”

Ranging across diverse media, Millett’s practice is rooted in “taking things apart, removing, replacing, cutting, pasting, sewing and building.” Evoking “the mended shapes of an old quilt, or polygonal segments of a cathedral window,” the works suggest “the importance of renewal and rebuilding, not only through the artistic process, but also through the possibility of transformative change.” Human beings, like earthquakes, forest fires or floods, are also forces of nature.

Millett earned her BFA from UC Berkeley followed by an MFA from CalArts. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the Studio Museum in Harlem; the Craft and Folk Museum in Los Angeles; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta; the Santa Monica Museum of Art; and the Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans.

related programs

July 23: opening reception

October 29: Artist talk

Adia Millett, Snake in the Fire, 2022.

“The countless creatures I witnessed living on the land, including a baby rattler, became mirrors. We are able to see ourselves in other living beings. As they navigate the land, so do we. I imagine the young snake using its senses to transition from the challenges of one season to another. Here the triangle-shaped painting, not only integrated the shades of red to symbolize fire, but blue, green, yellow, and gold, for the water, air, and earth. Like the snake, we move, shed, and thrive.”

Quilted Ancestor: Earth (unfinished)

The three Quilted Ancestors titled Sun, Moon, and Earth were created to bring the fabric to life. As a viewer, we can begin to imagine a ghost, spirit, or loved one beneath the shrouds. In turn, the titles suggest that we can then image our planet or the moon as an entity, or family member. The quilts are covered with pieces of fabric that reveal the layers and complexity of who we are.

The Collective ( 1 of 10)

The Collective is a series of ten abstract forms, slightly resembling the shape of a figure or mummy. These forms are designed to float amongst the wall, each one unique and still connected to the others. Millett does not see these as body forms, but rather an energetic trace within the body. Like all the work in this exhibition, they are emblematic of transition, elevation, and the many dimensions of who we are.

Grandmother is perhaps the most personal piece in this exhibition. It starts with a piece of an unfinished quilt top from Millett’s grandmother. Adia adds hand-stitching in and around it and moves outward creating a mandala of feathers, most of which were collected from the land at Di Rosa. Earth tones surround what Adia calls a “medicine wheel”. Being the great-grandchild of Indigenous and African American slave foremothers, Adia uses her art to pay homage to the woman who came before her. The vast elements of the earthwork as a connection point to her matriarchal lineage.

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Available Artwork by ADIA MILLETT

ADIA MILLETT featured in Cultured Mag

ART
FIVE TEXTILE ARTISTS EXPLORING CONTEMPORARY QUILTING
KENDRA WALKER
05.26.2021

African American quilting dates to the near origin of America itself. Aside from utilitarian purposes, quilt patterns recorded events such as births and marriages, signified different tribes and spiritual practices and allowed enslaved people to preserve their heritages and cultural traditions. Historically, Black women with the skill set would sew and quilt on plantations for wealthy households. However, the quilts that they made for white households followed classical European patterns and were very different from the quilts that they designed for themselves.

The domestic origin of textile work has contributed to slower acknowledgement of the medium as a fine art to be studied, visually critiqued and considered seriously. However, with their own practices, artists such as Harriet Powers, and more recently, Michael A. Cummings and Faith Ringgold, have paved a way for contemporary Black textile artists, and helped raise the art world profile of work in fabric. In the same steadfast spirit of innovation, today, a new crew of textile talents is pushing the boundaries of what quilting can be, drawing on its cultural history to tell stories both present and future.

BISA BUTLER, RACISM IS SO AMERICAN THAT WHEN YOU PROTEST IT PEOPLE THINK YOU ARE PROTESTING AMERICA, 2021. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN BUTLER.

Bisa Butler

Bisa Butler uses quilting to set the record straight. Through portraiture of groups or individual figures, she creates art that shows the Black community in a positive light, projecting how Black people want to be seen in the face of a constant media barrage of negative images. Working in a variety of materials, the artist’s large-scale pieces sit intentionally at eye level or higher when viewed on a wall, imposing equality of subject and viewer. Their references, however, are a bit of home: illusions to family photo albums and the use of familiar fabrics give her work an approachable nature.

MICHAEL C. THORPE, NEGRO CROWS, 2021. PHOTOGRAPHY BY PHILIPP J. HOFFMANN.

Michael C. Thorpe

In his body of work, Michael C. Thorpe explores feelings of joy and happiness as a Black man. Using fabric and thread, his quilted “paintings” are geometrical and pieced together like a puzzle. Thorpe intentionally depicts ordinary scenes or incorporates familiar iconography to appreciate the beauty in mundane parts of life. Using a variety of bright colors and cartoon style characters, he strives to make serious playful work, tackling social issues such as racism, housing disparities and capitalism. He questions what it means to be a Black man working in textiles and wants his work to show that anything is Black art, not just representational work.

BILLIE ZANGEWA, AN ANGEL AT MY BEDSIDE, 2020. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY THE ARTIST AND LEHMANN MAUPIN, NEW YORK, HONG KONG, SEOUL, AND LONDON.

Billie Zangewa

Billie Zangewa works with raw silk to explore identity, the Black femme form and gendered sociopolitical issues. Analyzing the parallels between femininity, motherhood and the home, Zangewa’s tapestries depict the work done by women that is often overlooked or undervalued. Her intimate portraits aim to confront historical stereotypes, gendered labor roles and racial prejudice as they illustrate universal experiences and illuminate what visualization of the female gaze, through self-portraiture, could look like.

BEVERLY Y. SMITH, RITE OF PASSAGE, 2020. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.

Beverly Y. Smith

Beverly Y. Smith’s quilts combine traditional and repurposed fabrics to tell stories, address taboos and illuminate controversial issues from the Antebellum South. Her figures are inspired by photographs of close family members, friends and other people of personal importance in her life. Smith acknowledges that fabrics can hold family truths from past generations and uses her quilts to connect with her ancestors and honor her southern roots.

ADIA MILLETT, GOLD MOON, 2020. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MORTON FINE ART.

Adia Millett

Inspired by life’s unknowns, textile artist Adia Millett incorporates ideas of identity, African American history and literature and rebuilding through transformative change in her work. Featuring abstracted, geometric shapes that suggest movement, her pieces honor the past through their use of repurposed fabrics, clothes and sheets, materials that help create our identities, our experiences and our culture. Acknowledging the previous history of each item, Millett pieces them together to make a new body of work. Her art underscores the importance of renewal and encourages viewers to embrace the space where transitions occur and project their own experiences onto her work.

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Click here to read the article in full at culturedmag.com

Available Artwork by ADIA MILLETT

ADIA MILLETT’s interview with Carlisle Berkley for Made in Bed, Sotheby’s Institute

Carlisle Berkley in Conversation with Artist, Adia Millett

April 27

After graduating from CalArts in 2000, Adia Millett moved to New York to join the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in 2001. It was in the same year that her work was first featured in a group exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she would go on to complete a residency. Her work is multidisciplinary and skillfully varied. In fact, her exhibition at California African American Museum ranged from sculpture to photography, collage, mural painting and textiles.

Adia Millett in her Oakland Studio

Millett’s recent exhibition at Morton Fine Art in Washington D.C., The Moon is Always Full included a series of pieces exploring how the moon acts as a metaphor for human subjectivity – paying particular interest to shadows. By focusing on the way that shadows give a disproportionate illusion of size and shape, Adia Millett explores the other ways that we think of shadows through perspective and light.

 Her quilt and textile pieces cannot be located within just one cultural context. When deconstructing and layering found, gifted fabrics with Dutch Wax African textiles – a process of connectivity, taking things apart and connecting them to something else is central to her practice. Her textiles transform destruction into unity, new life and connection. Renewal and rebuilding create the possibility of transformative change. Her exploration of basic configuration reconstructs patterns and memories to achieve a sense of fullness for the viewer. This concept closely converses with how a shadow can create fullness within a figure – or the full cycle of a moon.

Sotheby’s Institute of Art student, Carlisle Berkley, interviewed Adia Millett to discuss her quilting, the moon and other inspirations behind her work. 

Carlisle Berkley: Could you please give MADE IN BED readers some insight into your background and tell us how you became interested in the arts, particularly the medium of textiles and quilting? 

Do you look to any other artists for inspiration such as the women working in Gee’s Bend, Alabama? If so, what about their work, in particular, inspires you?  

Adia Millett: I am a big fan of the Gee’s Bend quilts. The colors, materials and form addressed issues of modernism before modernism even existed. Other textile artists who inspire me are Rosie Lee Tompkins and my mentor who taught me how to quilt, Roberta Andresen. With most textile and painting, it’s the artist’s use of color.

Adia Millett, Gold Moon (2020), 30.5 x 30.5 in., cotton, upholstery fabric and silk

CB: The works included in your exhibition The Moon is Always Full at Morton Fine Art frequently exhibit the moon. What interests you about the moon?  

AM: The moon acts as the perfect metaphor for so many aspects of life: seasons, cycles, change. The moon impacts the earth and its tides, which in turn impacts our marine life, et cetera. In this exhibition, I use the moon as a symbol for who you/we are. Here, even when the earth’s shadow stands between us and the light, we don’t become smaller. We remain full. 

Installation view of Adia Millett’s The Moon is Always Full at Morton Fine Art from March 25- April 22, 2021. Photo Courtesy of Jarrett Hendrix.

CB: In many cultures, the moon deity is female-identifying and represents creativity and fertility, among other things. Do these associations resonate in your art? 

AM: Humans love to put a gender on everything. I love and have been inspired by so many people and things that are identified as female. But at this point, I’m more interested in expanding rather than unpacking. 

Adia Millett, Gold Roof (2019), 40 x 30 in., acrylic, gold leaf and plastic wood on panel

CB: I’m particularly interested in your use of materials in Gold Roof. Upon first look, the piece is a façade that almost confronts the viewer. But upon closer analysis, we see the realist windows that pierce through the façade and disrupt the confrontation. Can you talk a bit about the intention behind this piece?

AM: For me, Gold Roof is about our connection to our ancestors. My eye wants to focus on the ghost-like shapes amongst the bricks rather than the layers of gold leaf. The cut-out windows and door help to also convey the painting of a house as a façade.

Installation view of Adia Millett’s OWF in The Moon is Always Full at Morton Fine Art. Photo Courtesy of Jarett Hendrix.

CB: In terms of color and shape, your piece OWF stands apart from other works in The Moon is Always Full – it’s also the only piece that doesn’t explicitly feature the moon, though its yellowish color reminds me of moonlight. Could you explain the title of the work to us and your inspiration behind the piece?  

AM: OWF stands for Off White Fragility. This is a piece I did in 2019 for an exhibition entitled The Privilege to Breathe. I was thinking about the myriad of shades of white. It was my way of exploring the layers and complexity of our emotional fragility. As well as the ways in which “whiteness” is infused in so many things.

CB: Lastly, how do you know when you’re done with a piece?

AM: I don’t really know when something is finished. If I live with a piece long enough, I’m likely to change it, even years later. I usually just get to a point where I accept its imperfections enough to truly love it. 

Adia Millett, Reflection (2020), 48 x 60 in., acrylic on wood

Thank you, Adia! 

Discover Adia’s work on her website and Instagram. 

Images Courtesy of the Artist and Morton Fine Arts.

Carlisle Berkley,

Contributor, MADE IN BED 

Available Artwork by ADIA MILLETT

Morton Fine Art, 52 O St NW #302, Washington, DC 20001

http://www.mortonfineart.com

info@mortonfineart.com

(202) 628-2787 (call or text)

ADIA MILLETT interviewed in Interlocutor

INTERLOCUTOR

Apr 8

ADIA MILLETT

Visual Artists

“The Moon is AlwaysFull” exhibition view at Morton Fine Art in Washington DC – photo courtesy of Jarrett Hendrix

Adia Millett, originally from Los Angeles, California received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. In 2001, she moved to New York City for the prestigious Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, followed by the Studio Museum in Harlem residency program. Millett has been a standout in numerous group exhibitions including the well-received “Greater New York” show at PS1 in Long Island City, New York and “Freestyle” at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Barbican Gallery in London; The Craft and Folk Museum in LA; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta; The Santa Monica Museum of Art; and The Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans. Millett has taught as an artist in residence at Columbia College in Chicago, UC Santa Cruz, Cooper Union in NY, and California College of the Arts. Millett currently lives and works in Oakland.

In this interview, she discusses the recent work currently on display for her solo show “The Moon is Always Full” – up through April 22 at Morton Fine Art in Washington DC.

Interview by Isabel Hou

You currently have an exhibit at Morton Fine Art in Washington D.C. titled “The Moon is Always Full.” In particular, the titles of your textile works, Gold Moon and Black Moon, caught my eye. What is their significance relative to the exhibition?

Gold Moon and Black Moon were actually part of an older piece titled Beneath You. I cut that piece apart (something I often do). Structurally I wanted to take the square grid apart and construct something more organic. The process felt like I was channeling the moon as she gave birth to the embryo forms, Black Moon and Gold Moon.

Gold Moon, 2019 – 30.5 x 30.5 in – Cotton, upholstery fabric and silk

Black Moon, 2019 – 30.5 x 30.5 in – Cotton, upholstery fabric and silk

The pieces in your exhibition are constructed with fragments “to fashion a meaning greater than its individual elements.” (Morton Fine Art, 2021) Quilt-making may be considered an act of fragmentation and construction. Was this textile medium the source of your interest in identity and collective history? Or rather, did your interest lead you to the medium?

I think our cultural histories are imbued with a foundation of craft, of distilling who we are in handmade creative objects. Here, quilting pays homage to that process while redefining how it’s used.  Identity, psychology, spirituality, nature are all reflected in my choices to challenge our visual understanding of who we are.

Your past exhibitions have been named “Infinite Edges” (Traywick Contemporary, 2019), “Breaking Patterns” (California African American Museum, 2019), and “A Matter of Time” (Galerie du Monde, 2020-21). Where does “The Moon is Always Full” fit in with them?

I write poetry and all my titles have or will eventually become the title of something I write. What all of these titles attempt to do is be broad enough that they can refer to a collective societal expansion, while simultaneously asking the viewer to examine how the title can apply to their own personal life.

There is this bright, geometric overlap and underlap in both Portal and Reflection. How do these pieces and their layered compositions contribute to the theme of your exhibition?

It’s a recognition of literal and metaphorical perspectives. We perceive shapes and colors as an indication of 3-dimensional space. The work is examining our desire to make meaning out of abstraction.

Portal, 2018 – 24 x 24 in – Acrylic on wood

Reflection, 2020 – 48 x 60 in – Acrylic on wood

In the past, you have engaged with concepts of perception, perspective, and time, and have stated that your work “pays homage to the past,” but is “informed by the future.” (Morton Fine Art, 2021). Is this a concept that you find present in your own life? Or is it a commentary on something larger?

I think every artist’s work is a reflection of their lives, so our cultural pasts, our relationship to beauty, resilience, death, community, and so many other topics find their way into my work and hopefully into the minds of anyone interested in art.

You have attributed African American experiences as a source of inspiration. Can you expound on what aspects of your work pay homage to these experiences? And what do you hope to convey through these manifestations?

I am an African American. My work is inspired by my lived experience. What I hope to convey is the value of self-reflection.

Gold Roof, 2019 – 40 x 30 in – Acrylic, gold leaf and plastic on wood panel

What really stands out to me within your work is the dichotomy between geometry and fluidity. The bold colors and patterns in your pieces seem so free and fluid. Yet, much of your work includes neat, geometric lines and shapes. What do you hope to convey between this contrast? Or rather, do you view these elements as complementary?

It’s really great to hear that you see the patterns and colors as free and fluid. Part of my process when I am making anything is to embrace contradictions. The places where we believe things or people don’t belong together are where beauty resides.

XY Shield, 2019 – 42 x 42 in – Indigo dyed cotton, upholstery fabric, cotton and silk

On your site, you write that your work aims to remind viewers of the “importance of renewal and rebuilding […] through the possibility of transformative change.” Has the ever-evolving nature of identity and the human experience always been so important to you?

I don’t know. I do know that many creative people like myself grow up feeling like aliens, different than the people around them. I think that experience as a child has the ability to spark the drive to fight convention and redefine the identities that have been projected on us.

Who, or what inspires you?

Everything inspires me. Humans, nature, science fiction, music, grief, love, history, emotions, color, moments when we take risks.

OWF, 2019 – 37 x 74 in – Found fabric, wool, cotton and batton

As we live through a pandemic, have you thought about how the art world will change in the years to come? Do you foresee your work changing in response to this crisis?

Yes, the art world is definitely changing. Amongst other things, the pandemic has certainly woken us up. It has impacted my work, but more importantly, it has raised my desire to support other artists, to collaborate, to bring awareness to social justice issues around racism, patriarchy, prison incarceration, and the growing homeless population. I am more driven than ever to make work that is built around empathy and respect for each other and our collective consciousness. 

“The Moon is Always Full” is on display through April 22 at Morton Fine Art in Washington DC.

Click HERE to read the Interlocutor article in full.

Available Artwork by ADIA MILLETT

ADIA MILLETT reviewed in The Washington Post

By Mark Jenkins
April 2, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

“Reflection” (2020) by Adia Millett. 60″x48″, acrylic on panel. (Morton Fine Art)Artwork

Adia Millett

Adia Millet’s show at Morton Fine Art is divided into fabric pieces and paintings, but the two categories overlap in theme and appearance. Almost all of the works include one or more circles that represent the heavenly body invoked in the exhibition’s title, “The Moon Is Always Full.” And two of the paintings arrange scraps of color as if they were pieces of material.

Millett often begins by disassembling cloth items, with the idea of symbolically reconstructing African American experience and identity. (She also tweaks White outlooks in the show’s least colorful and only circle-less entry, “OWF,” which stands for “off-white fragility.”) The California artist has a strong sense of form but little apparent interest in sheer abstraction. “Gold Roof” is little more than a triangle, a circle and several rectangles, but these elements are transmuted into a house under a full-moon sky by deft composition and the insertion of two 3-D model windows.

Just as streamlined are “Reflection,” a landscape-like picture that seems to be as much stitched as painted, and “Portal,” in which a blue round resembles the moon behind striated clouds, but also a cell or an egg. Any of those possibilities are apt, since Millett’s essential concerns include renewal and regeneration.

Adia Millett: The Moon Is Always Full Through April 22 at Morton Fine Art, 52 O St. NW, No. 302.

Available Artwork by ADIA MILLETT

USA / Plasticienne / Adia Millett / QUADRATURE ORANGE ET PASSAGE NUAGEUX

Zo Mag’ complete article

Publié le 30 mars 2021 par kalmos58

Dans ses précédentes réalisations, Adia Millett ouvrait déjà de singuliers paysages. Il arrive que l’artiste prenne le parti-pris de relire les éléments constitutifs. Par exemple elle se débarrasse de ce qui est compliqué dans la forme. Une montagne se réduit à un simple triangle. Une forêt se compose de sphères qui s’imbriquent les unes dans les autres. La réalité nouvelle est forcément singulière. Mais si l’on y réfléchit de plus près, pas certain qu’un insecte voit l’herbe qu’il a devant lui de la même façon qu’une caméra à infrarouge ou un enregistreur phonique. La réalité est fluctuante. Et ce sont ces fluctuations qu’Adia Millet traduit.

« The Moon is always full » participe à ce jeu de construction et de déconstruction. Millett démonte les choses (et les idées), elle enlève, elle déplace, elle raccommode et livre ainsi des histoires en mutation. « La lune est toujours pleine » par exemple, figée dans un cosmos de couleur incertaine, qui hésite entre les saisons, les époques, les appartenances qui ont été et ne seront plus.

Artwork

Millett démonte les choses (et les idées), elle enlève, elle déplace, elle raccommode et livre ainsi des histoires en mutation.

« 𝘔𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘪𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘶 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦́ 𝘱𝘢𝘳 𝘭’𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘴 𝘳𝘦́𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘦́𝘴 𝘦𝘵 𝘥’𝘪𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘦. 𝘔𝘢𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦, 𝘪𝘭 𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘦́ 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘭’𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘳 𝘦𝘵 𝘴’𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦 », dit-elle. « 𝘊𝘦𝘭𝘢 𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦 𝘭’𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘥𝘶 𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘷𝘦𝘢𝘶 𝘦𝘵 𝘥𝘦 𝘭𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘯𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘳 𝘭𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘦, 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘴𝘪 𝘱𝘢𝘳 𝘭𝘢 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦́ 𝘥’𝘶𝘯 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘶𝘳. »

Originaire de Los Angeles, l’artiste a suivi de multiples formations, comme le prestigieux Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (2001), et un programme de résidence au Museum in Harlem. Ses travaux ont été depuis montrés dans de nombreux lieux comme les musées d’art d’Atlanta, de Chicago, d’Harlem ou de la Nouvelle-Orléans et de Santa Monica. Dans nombre de ces lieux, elle a également enseigné, comme artiste résidente. « La Lune » marque en fait une autre étape importante de son travail. Le satellite, selon des nouvelles dispositions, resterait à une place apparemment définitive. A l’inverse, l’ombre humaine pourrait changer pas de taille et de matière.

« The moon is always full », jusqu’au 22 avril.
RC (ZO mag’)
Photos: DR et Morton Fine Art.
https://www.mortonfineart.com/artist/adia-millett

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Dans ses précédentes réalisations, Adia Millett ouvrait déjà de singuliers paysages. Il arrive que l’artiste prenne le parti-pris de relire les éléments constitutifs. Par exemple elle se débarrasse de ce qui est compliqué dans la forme. Une montagne se réduit à un simple triangle. Une forêt se compose de sphères qui s’imbriquent les unes dans les autres. La réalité nouvelle est forcément singulière. Mais si l’on y réfléchit de plus près, pas certain qu’un insecte voit l’herbe qu’il a devant lui de la même façon qu’une caméra à infrarouge ou un enregistreur phonique. La réalité est fluctuante. Et ce sont ces fluctuations qu’Adia Millet traduit.

“The Moon is always full” participe à ce jeu de construction et de déconstruction. Millett démonte les choses (et les idées), elle enlève, elle déplace, elle raccommode et livre ainsi des histoires en mutation. “La lune est toujours pleine” par exemple, figée dans un cosmos…

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ADIA MILLETT’s solo exhibition “The Moon is Always Full” at Morton Fine Art in DC

Showcasing a range of paintings and textiles by California-based artist ADIA MILLETT, The Moon Is Always Full investigates a cosmic utopia where the moral and metaphysical intermingle and converge.

Portal, 2018, 24″x24″, acrylic on panel

The Moon Is Always Full

A solo exhibition of paintings & textile artwork by ADIA MILLETT

March 25 – April 22, 2021

Contact the gallery for private viewing appointment, price list, additional information and acquisition.

(202) 628-2787 (call or text)

info@mortonfineart.com

Available artwork by ADIA MILLETT

About The Moon Is Always Full

• 

  Adia Millett in her studio

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  Black Moon, 2020, 30.5″30.5″, cotton, upholstery fabric and silk

• 

  Gold Moon, 2020, 30.5″x30.5″, cotton, upholstery fabric and silk

• 

  Gold Roof, 2019, 40″x30″, acrylic, gold leaf and plastic on panel

• 

  Portal, 2018, 24″x24″, acrylic on wood

• 

  Reflection, 2020, 48″x60″, acrylic on panel

• 

  XY Shield, 2019, 42″x42″, indigo dyed fabric, cotton, upholstery fabric and silk

• 

  OWF, 2019, 37″x74″, found fabric, wool, cotton and batton

Weaving threads of African American experiences with broader ideas of identity, and collective history, my work investigates the fragile interconnectivity among all living things. Fragmented, constructed, and reassembled, I shed light on the multifaceted and complex parallels between the creative process and the nature of personal identity. My paintings feature abstracted, geometric shapes that imply movement – colorful forms expand and collapse freely among glittery backgrounds with hints of landscape and structural objects such as rooftops, windows and doors. While the textiles draw on the domestic and artistic traditions of quilt-making, they are pieced together, combining culturally diverse fabrics. While my work pays homage to the past through the use of repurposed fabrics and historical iconography, its bright atheistic imagery is informed by the future. The art reminds us of the importance of renewal and rebuilding, not only through the artistic process, but also through the possibility of transformative change. – ADIA MILLETT

Using a range of process-oriented techniques, Millett takes things apart, removes, replaces, cuts, pastes, sews, and rebuilds to discover the space where transitions occur and where stories of impermanence unfold. Her work weaves together threads of Black American experiences with broader ideas of identity and collective history, suggesting the fragile interconnectivity among all living things. Constructing works assembled from vibrant and textured fragments to fashion a meaning greater than its individual elements, Millett illuminates the multidimensional parallels between the creative process and the nature of personal identity.

ADIA MILLETT, originally from Los Angeles, California received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. In 2001, she moved to New York City for the prestigious Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, followed by the Studio Museum in Harlem residency program. Millett has been a standout in numerous group exhibitions including the well-received “Greater New York” show at PS1 in Long Island City, New York and “Freestyle” at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Barbican Gallery in London; The Craft and Folk Museum in LA; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta; The Santa Monica Museum of Art; and The Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans. Millett has taught as an artist in residence at Columbia College in Chicago, UC Santa Cruz, Cooper Union in NY, and California College of the Arts. Millett currently lives and works in Oakland. She has been represented by Morton Fine Art since 2020.

About Morton Fine Art Founded in 2010 in Washington, DC by curator Amy Morton, Morton Fine Art (MFA) is a fine art gallery and curatorial group that collaborates with art collectors and visual artists to inspire fresh ways of acquiring contemporary art. Firmly committed to the belief that art collecting can be cultivated through an educational stance, MFA’s mission is to provide accessibility to museum-quality contemporary art through a combination of substantive exhibitions and a welcoming platform for dialogue and exchange of original voice. Morton Fine Art specializes in a stellar roster of nationally and internationally renowned artists as well as has an additional focus on artwork of the African Diaspora. Morton Fine Art 52 O St NW #302 Washington, DC 20001 COVID-19 protocol: By appointment. Mask required. Contact the gallery for supplementary artwork documentation such as detail images and short videos. Safe, no contact door to door delivery available. Shipping nationally and internationally.

ADIA MILLETT discusses artwork in her solo “The Moon is Always Full”

Opens today, March 25 – April 22, 2021.

By appointment only.

info@mortonfineart.com

(202) 628-2787 (call or text)

Video by Jarrett Hendrix

My process is informed by taking things apart, removing, replacing, cutting, pasting, sewing, and building, in order to discover the space where transitions occur and where stories of impermanence unfold. Weaving threads of African American experiences with broader ideas of identity, and collective history, my work investigates the fragile interconnectivity among all living things. Fragmented, constructed, and reassembled, I shed light on the multifaceted and complex parallels between the creative process and the nature of personal identity. My paintings feature abstracted, geometric shapes that imply movement – colorful forms expand and collapse freely among glittery backgrounds with hints of landscape and structural objects such as rooftops, windows and doors. While the textiles draw on the domestic and artistic traditions of quilt-making, they are pieced together, combining culturally diverse fabrics. While my work pays homage to the past through the use of repurposed fabrics and historical iconography, its bright atheistic imagery is informed by the future. The art reminds us of the importance of renewal and rebuilding, not only through the artistic process, but also through the possibility of transformative change. – ADIA MILLETT

MILLETT, originally from Los Angeles, California received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. In 2001, she moved to New York City for the prestigious Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, followed by the Studio Museum in Harlem residency program. Millett has been a standout in numerous group exhibitions including the well-received “Greater New York” show at PS1 in Long Island City, New York and “Freestyle” at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Barbican Gallery in London; The Craft and Folk Museum in LA; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta; The Santa Monica Museum of Art; and The Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans. Millett has taught as an artist in residence at Columbia College in Chicago, UC Santa Cruz, Cooper Union in NY, and California College of the Arts. Millett currently lives and works in Oakland. She has been represented by Morton Fine Art since 2020.