Intisar Abioto
Black Art/Ists Project Fellow
Intisar Abioto (b. Memphis, TN. 1986) is an artist working across photography, dance, and<br>writing.
Intisar Abioto (b. 1986, Memphis, TN) is an artist working across photography, dance, and writing. Drawing from the visionary and embodied roots of Blackgirl Southern cross-temporal, cross-modal storytelling traditions, her work explores the living breath and breadth of people of African descent within storied, geographic, and imaginative landscapes.
Working through long-form projects that span the visual, folkloric, documentary, and performing arts, she has produced The People Could Fly Project, The Black Portlanders, and The Black. Co-created with her four artist sisters, The People Could Fly Project was a 200,000-mile flying arts expedition examining themes of flight and freedom rooted in the African diasporic myth of the flying African, as well as Virginia Hamilton’s award-winning book, The People Could Fly.
Abioto received the 2018 Oregon Humanities Emerging Journalists, Community Stories Fellowship, through which she began an ongoing research project on the history of artists of African descent in Oregon. She has performed and/or exhibited at venues such as Ori Gallery, Portland Art Museum, Duplex Gallery, Photographic Center Northwest, African American Museum in Philadelphia, Poetry Press Week, Design Week Portland, Spelman College, Powell’s City of Books, University of Oregon White Box Gallery, Portland State University, Reed College, and Zilkha Gallery, among others.
In 2019, she was selected for an Art in the Governor’s Office solo exhibition, where she exhibited and performed alongside nine Oregon-based Black artists in the Oregon State Capitol building in Salem. That same year, she received the Women of Excellence in the Arts Award from the Portland Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. In 2020, she was awarded the Lilla Jewel Award for Womxn Artists from the Seeding Justice Foundation. She is also a 2023 Art Matters Foundation Artist2Artist Fellow.
Abioto’s publication Black Portlands features interviews with Black Portlanders accompanied by her photography. She contributed to MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora (2017) and provided photographs for the Urban League of Portland’s State of Black Oregon 2015.
She is the guest curator of Black Artists of Oregon, an exhibition exploring the history of Black artists in the state, recently shown at the Portland Art Museum. Alongside the five women artists in her family, she co-founded Studio Abioto, a multivalent creative arts studio. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Working through long-form projects that span the visual, folkloric, documentary, and performing arts, she has produced The People Could Fly Project, The Black Portlanders, and The Black. Co-created with her four artist sisters, The People Could Fly Project was a 200,000-mile flying arts expedition examining themes of flight and freedom rooted in the African diasporic myth of the flying African, as well as Virginia Hamilton’s award-winning book, The People Could Fly.
Abioto received the 2018 Oregon Humanities Emerging Journalists, Community Stories Fellowship, through which she began an ongoing research project on the history of artists of African descent in Oregon. She has performed and/or exhibited at venues such as Ori Gallery, Portland Art Museum, Duplex Gallery, Photographic Center Northwest, African American Museum in Philadelphia, Poetry Press Week, Design Week Portland, Spelman College, Powell’s City of Books, University of Oregon White Box Gallery, Portland State University, Reed College, and Zilkha Gallery, among others.
In 2019, she was selected for an Art in the Governor’s Office solo exhibition, where she exhibited and performed alongside nine Oregon-based Black artists in the Oregon State Capitol building in Salem. That same year, she received the Women of Excellence in the Arts Award from the Portland Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. In 2020, she was awarded the Lilla Jewel Award for Womxn Artists from the Seeding Justice Foundation. She is also a 2023 Art Matters Foundation Artist2Artist Fellow.
Abioto’s publication Black Portlands features interviews with Black Portlanders accompanied by her photography. She contributed to MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora (2017) and provided photographs for the Urban League of Portland’s State of Black Oregon 2015.
She is the guest curator of Black Artists of Oregon, an exhibition exploring the history of Black artists in the state, recently shown at the Portland Art Museum. Alongside the five women artists in her family, she co-founded Studio Abioto, a multivalent creative arts studio. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
More of the Team
Adam Swanson
Literary Arts Fellow
Julia D'Amario
Printmaking Program Director
Licity Collins
Music Fellow
Mika Aono
Printmaking Fellow
Mike Vos
Photography Fellow