Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, is proud to present its first solo show by interdisciplinary artist Sadie Barnette (b. 1984, Oakland, CA). FROM HERE will feature drawings, collage, photography, and found objects, creating a dynamic installation exploring the abstraction of urban space and the transcendence of the mundane to the imaginative. There will be a reception for the artist on Saturday, September 17, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm, in conjunction with the Union Square Art Walk. The exhibit runs from September 15 through October 29, 2016. Barnette will be featured in the exhibition All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50 at the Oakland Museum, running concurrently from October 8, 2016 to February 12, 2017. Sadie Barnette will also be featured in a solo show at the Untitled art fair in Miami Beach, November 30 to December 4, 2016.
Sadie Barnette writes, “I am the Oakland 80’s baby of the radical and armed movement of love, the interracial, outer-spatial, and of disco idealism. I am the improbable celebration of my parents’ acts of resistance, gender defiant grace, fierce Midwestern kindness, dearly protected optimism and humor.” As the world commemorates the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party, FROM HERE includes works drawing on a 500-page FBI surveillance file on her father, Rodney Barnette, who was a founder of the Compton, California, chapter of The Black Panther Party, a member of the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis, and opened the first black-owned gay bar in San Francisco. A print of a 1971 typewritten letter from the artist’s father details his then current work fighting for the freedom of Angela Davis; in an earnest yet wise voice he describes the protests and courtroom scene but ends the letter with details of a family party, reminding us that this political history is also dearly personal.