Art Now After House Celebrates Work from Sadikisha Collier
Art Now After Hours
Native New Yorker, Sadikisha Collier knew at the age of five she wanted to become an artist.
Growing up in Bedford Stuyvesant, Collier is a multimedia artist and poet but is known for working in printmaking as well as painting, collage, prints, stained glass, and computer graphics. She recalls early in her life that becoming an artist was a career that she was determined to chase.
“I was sitting on the stoop in Bed Stuy and my little girlfriend said, What do you want to be when you grow up?” Collier said. “I said I wanted to be a famous artist. She said you think somebody gonna come around this corner and discover you?”
Collier’s love of art was inspired by her family at a young age and evolved during her school years during an interaction with a teacher. Collier shares the story of how she was praised by her teacher and her class for drawing a cat. Remembering that positive feeling, Collier knew from that point that all she wanted to do was be an artist, and even when she would try something different, she was always drawn back to art. Fame isn’t something Collier is looking for, she explains that there are more important things in the world to worry about.
Collier’s work illustrates her love of music, poetry, family, and personal experiences. Due to the situation the world is under, Collier is vocal about social and political issues, which is seen through her current projects. This includes the safety procedures during the coronavirus pandemic, which led to her making the handmade healing masks. Created in her mother’s honor, the idea of these masks were sparked after the George Floyd and Breonna Taylors killings. Mask Nubian Queen was also created with the same thought in mind.
“She to me is an African queen whose womb gave birth to this nation, all people,” Collier explained Mask Nubian Queen. “And if you look closely at both her eyes there’s a dot, which means she’s centered. So when I think of women, I think of the struggles they go through. I think we are all kings and queens.”
Collier has also stressed the need for voting during the black lives matter movement in her piece “Black Lives Matter! We Must Vote!!!” She believes that voting is more important than ever during the coronavirus pandemic. The artwork illustrates how she views the youths fighting for their rights and for a better future.
President of the oldest Black visual arts event in Brooklyn, the Fulton Art Fair, Collier’s work was featured and sold at the Sotheby’s auction house. Her artwork has also been shown on the hit show “New York Undercover,” through the BCAT Cable network where she works as a producer. She accepted a Nubian Sisters Art Circle in 2003 and received grants from The Wheeler Foundation, Artist Fellowship Inc., Change Inc., and the Women’s Printmaking Workshop.
“It’s just so soothing to my soul, art,” Collier said. “And when it touches someone else, I just feel such gratification. I’m so humbled from that.”