Adia Millett     Works  |  Bio  |  Press  | Exhibition Views

Photo: Shaun Roberts

American, b. 1975
Lives and works in Oakland, CA

Adia Millett’s work investigates the fragile interconnectivity among all living things, weaving threads of African American experiences with broader ideas of identity and collective history. Inspired by Afrofuturism, emotional resiliency, and the preservation of our land, her multi-disciplinary practice includes painting, quilting, stained glass, collage, video, sculpture, and installation. 

Images, ideas and materials are deconstructed and reassembled to shed light on the parallels between the creative process and the nature of personal identity. In Millett’s paintings, abstracted, geometric shapes imply movement: colorful forms expand and collapse freely among backgrounds that hint of landscapes and man-made structures. 

Millett received her BFA from the University of California, Berkeley, and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and is an alumnus of the prestigious Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program. She has completed residencies at the Studio Museum of Harlem (2002); Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA (2007); School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s ThreeWalls Residency (2010); Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL (2015); and the Hambidge Center, Rabun Gap, GA (2018). In 2021, Millett was awarded the Anonymous Was A Woman Award.

Recent solo exhibitions include a forthcoming show at ICA San José, CA, opening in September 2023, as well as A Force of Nature at the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, CA (2022); The Privilege to Breathe at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, CA (2019); Breaking Patterns at The California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2019). In addition to Freestyle, The Studio Museum in Harlem’s groundbreaking 2001 exhibition, Millett’s work has been included in group shows at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK; Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA; Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, MI; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; MoMA PS1, New York, NY; Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA; New Museum, New York, NY; Oakland Museum of California, CA; and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL, among other prestigious institutions.