Bisa Butler, Hold Me Close

Bisa Butler makes quilted portraits and recently debuted a show with some of her newest work called Hold Me Close. From her artist’s statement:

This body of work is a visual response to how I am feeling as an African American woman living in 2025. We lived through COVID and witnessed the uprising of the Black Lives Matter movement, only to arrive at a time when many of the civil rights I grew up with are being challenged and reversed. Protections and programs for non-white Americans, women, queer people, poor people, and people with disabilities are under attack, and it has left me feeling destabilized. Watching immigrants being hunted, chased down, and kidnapped by masked men horrifies me. The thought of people being gunned down and starved for political agendas is the stuff of nightmares. I’ve been looking for solace and turned to my work like a visual diary.

Colossal has a good gallery of images from the show and Butler did a video tour where you can see how shiny & glittery some of the pieces are:

Hold Me Close is on view from September 13 to November 1, 2025 at Jeffrey Deitch in Los Angeles.

• art
• Bisa Butler