Bader+Simon

Amanda Williams: The reach to look ahead and smile (Nadia)
Mary W.D. Graham: Tyrell
Oasa DuVerney: Join What, Die For Who?
Rinella Alfonso: Braids for Church

In honor of Black History Month, we present work by some of the Black women artists in our permanent collection. Throughout history, and more evidently and recently, Black women have held this country together. From Harriet Tubman leading enslaved people to freedom to Fannie Lou Hamer fighting for voting rights to Stacy Abrams using political savvy to ensure that democracy is upheld.

This same vision and power exist amongst Black women artists, who exude a revolutionary perspective while reclaiming narratives through diverse artistic mediums, offering their audience a glimpse into intersectionality that provides insight into Black female experiences.

The permanent collection at Bader+Simon is a curated selection of work from the personal collection of our founder, Tamara White. The focus of the collection centers on work by and about underrepresented artists and themes, social justice, and the need to use art to educate and shift perspective.

Vision & Power presents powerful work by a selection of incredible Black women artists whose talent refutes the large statistics of white male artists plaguing galleries and museums today. Women who serve as cultural critics, storytellers, and activists, using art as a tool for resistance, community building, and redefining beauty and identity beyond the white, male gaze.

Braids for Church, 2023

Rinella Alfonso

Rinella Alfonso (1995, Willemstad, Curaçao) is a painter whose layered, evocative oil paintings explore memory, spirituality, and identity. She lives and works in Amsterdam.
Tyrell

Mary W.D. Graham

Mary W.D. Graham is a SF-based visual artist and singer. Her series, Value Test: Brown Paper, reclaims the fraught legacy of the “paper bag test”—a discriminatory practice within Black communities that privileged lighter skin, reflecting the pervasive reach of colorism.⁠
Additional work by Mary W.D. Graham
Join What, Die For Who?

Oasa DuVerney

Oasa DuVerney (b. 1979 Queens, NY) is known for her figurative works utilizing graphite on paper. DuVerney’s work centers itself in social and political commentary that relates to her social status as a woman of color and a working-class person.
Additional work by Oasa DuVerney
The reach to look ahead and smile (Nadia).

Amanda Williams

Amanda Williams is an artist who uses ideas around color and architecture to explore the intersection of race and the built environment. Through an interdisciplinary practice that brings spatial and aesthetic theory to bear on real social problems, Williams is clarifying the role of the artist in reimagining public space.

[Image courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York. © Amanda Williams]
Past Exhibits