Sadie Barnette is a multimedia artist who engages family legacy and black femme narratives. Through photography, text-based drawing, sculpture, and installation, she explores collective possibilities across space and time. Incorporating bright colors and sparkling rhinestones, Barnette elevates the mundane to emphasize the magic of everyday objects—from birthday cakes to neighborhood signs.
Barnette (b. 1984, Oakland, CA) has a BFA from CalArts and an MFA from University of California, San Diego. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; LACMA, CA; de Young, San Francisco, CA; Brooklyn Museum; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; Guggenheim Museum, NY; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Blanton Museum at UT Austin, TX; San José Museum of Art, CA; Oakland Museum of California; Berkeley Art Museum; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among others. Barnette has enjoyed solo exhibitions at the Walker Art Center; SFMOMA, CA; San José Museum of Art; The Kitchen, New York; Pomona College, Los Angeles and Pitzer College Art Galleries, Los Angeles; ICA Los Angeles; The Lab, San Francisco; Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco; Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College, PA; and Manetti Shrem Museum, UC Davis. Her work is included in current group exhibitions at Wende Museum, Culver City, CA; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY, as well as upcoming group shows at Studio Museum in Harlem, NY and Las Vegas Civic Center Gallery, NV. She’s the recipient of numerous awards including the United States Artists Fellowship, Studio Museum in Harlem residency, Artadia grant, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture residency, and the inaugural Artist Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Black Studies Collaboratory, among others. Recent commissions include Bay Area Walls at SFMOMA, a large-scale photomural at California African American Museum on view through October 2027, and a permanent, site-specific installation at the Los Angeles International Airport is forthcoming in 2027.
Barnette lives and works in Oakland, CA.
