Eli Leon was an Oakland-based collector, scholar, and champion of African American quiltmakers whose gift of nearly three thousand quilts to BAMPFA has made possible an inspiring future of scholarship and presentation, currently on view in the Routed West exhibition. In addition to collecting artwork, Leon also compiled a massive—and unruly—collection of raw materials and textiles. The Estate of Eli Leon has made available the last remaining fabric scraps from Leon’s collection to seed new work and continue to foreground contemporary artists working in textiles. Join us for a presentation of new work created from the Eli Leon fabric collection by acclaimed artists Mansur Nurullah, Jasmine Nyende, and rel robinson, who will share their artwork and take part in a conversation about connecting with this storied material.

About the Artists

Jasmine Nyende is an artist and musician from Los Angeles. Her work explores how patterning in punk, astrology, poetry, and craft can become healing collaborative modalities in our communities. She is an astrologer rooted in the planet Saturn’s legacy told through African American culture and lead vocalist for the Black queer punk band FUCK U PAY US!. She has a textile practice creating assemblage art from repurposed and recycled materials.

rel robinson is an artist and writer based in San Francisco. Working in and around photography, fibers, research, text, and archival methodologies, she superimposes the personal and the political and aims to develop a language with the ephemeral.

San Francisco–based Mansur Nurullah creates intricately stitched, wall-hanging sculptures that build on the legacies of African American quiltmakers to trace personal and community histories. Using discarded clothing, upholstery, bits of fur, disassembled shoes and handbags, and other detritus, he incorporates the pasts of the materials and the people who used them to depict personal or social narratives in exuberant, three-dimensional artworks that exist beyond the boundaries of painting, sculpture, or textile.