Nimah Gobir is an artist and educator based in Oakland, California. Gobir’s work explores how she came to inherit the complexities and nuances of her Black identity from her family. Artworks source her siblings’ and Nigerian-born parents’ memories while honoring their individual experiences and essential humanity.
Drawing from personal and autobiographical histories, Gobir imbues paintings with images that are at once tender and powerful. Composed with expressive brushwork, hand-stitched embroidery, and household textiles, her work layers multiple textures into intimate domestic portraits. 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 her sister and her getting their hair braided as children or her parents posed on a couch covered in the patina of early adulthood, Gobir contends with the enduring results of diaspora and the renewal of belonging to a home.
Gobir has shown work at SOMArts, The Growlery, Museum of the African Diaspora, and Root Division, where she was awarded the Blau-Gold Studio/Teaching fellowship.
Residency: October 2024 - January 2025
Art Exhibition: Friday, January 24 & Saturday, January 25 & Tuesday, January 28