MUZAE SESAY

BIO

Muzae Sesay
b.1989, Long Beach, California.
Based in Oakland, California.

My artistic focus derives from a relentless commitment to understanding our collective relationship to space, memory, community, and the perceived truths within them. From that foundation, my practice has thematically revolved around the merging of these correlations to form paintings that provoke social reasoning and induce the viewer’s agency in the navigation and narration of imagery. Current work connects with the feelings that arise from testing the absoluteness of the strict and rigid aspects of physics and pragmatism found in architecture, design, and our built environment. Utilizing skewed perspectives of space and shape collapsed into two-dimensional planes of color, I create surreal geometric interiors, exteriors, landscapes, and structures—presenting a situation in which to be experienced and explored. Inspired by ideas of cultural reflection and developed by questioning the validity of remembrance, my work often depicts worlds created in response to a social introspection and/or an attempt to perceive a shared reality. This process involves taking imagery from the physical world and reducing them to rudimental forms that then populate fragmented universes compiled by perspectival fallacies and tied together by harmonious color composition. The viewer is compelled to understand the space, question its dimensionality, dive inside and walk around. Muzae’s work is in the museum collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and de Young Museum.

CV

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Laguna Peralta - Eighteen Gallery - Copenhagen 2022
Multi-Purpose Room - Pt.2 Gallery - Oakland 2021
Peacemaker - Public Gallery - London 2021
Mass Vax - The Cabin - Los Angeles 2021
Cut Trees - San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - San Francisco 2020
Freetown Veranda / The Purest Air I've Ever Known - Pt.2 Gallery - Oakland 2020
Skeletons - Pt.2 Gallery - Oakland 2019
Only You Know and I Know - I.M.A. - San Francisco 2019
Domestic Dive - Pt.2 Gallery - Oakland 2018

SELECT EXHIBITIONS
Chasing Phantoms - The Pit Gallery - Los Angeles 2022
Hues - Hannah Traore Gallery - New York 2022
Wild Frontiers - The Pit Gallery - Los Angeles 2021
Rites of Passage - Unit Gallery - London 2021
Californisme: Partie 2 - Bim Bam Gallery - Paris 2021
Path of the Storm - SUNNY NY Gallery - New York 2021 
Sites of Memory - United Talent Agency: UTA Artist Space - Los Angeles 2021
Flag Show - Delaplane Gallery - San Francisco 2021
Personal Alchemy - San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art - San Jose 2020 
No Time Like The Present (online) - Public Gallery - London 2020
Secret Santa - Guerrero Gallery - San Francisco 2019 
October Group Show - Pt.2 - Los Angeles 2019
Major Contemporary Works - Berggruen Gallery - San Francisco 2019
Celebrating Contemporary Black Artists - San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists Gallery - San Francisco 2019
Forever, A Moment - SOMArts - San Francisco 2019
FISK and Friends - FISK Gallery - Portland 2018
Alicia McCarthy - V1 Gallery - Copenhagen 2018
Division of Labor - Minnesota Street Project - San Francisco 2018
Inscape/ Escape - Spaceship - New York 2018
House Plant - Swim Gallery - San Francisco 2018
Paradigm Shift - Keane Eyes Gallery - San Francisco 2017
Call for Beauty - Root Division - San Francisco 2017
Confessions - Little Lodge Gallery - San Francisco 2017
Materialism - Layer Studios - Oakland 2017
Shakin’ Systems - SFSU Artist Gallery - San Francisco 2017
Lil’ Swim - Luggage Store Gallery - San Francisco 2017
Keh-Meel-E-Yun - Pro Arts -Oakland 2017
Winter Group Exhibition - Athen B. Gallery - Oakland 2016
6-Years at Incline Gallery - Incline Gallery - San Francisco 2016
Black Mail 2 - Space236 - San Francisco 2016
Four Years Later - Book and Job Gallery - San Francisco 2016
New Radius - Athen B Gallery - Oakland 2016
Obstacle - Merchants of Reality Gallery - San Francisco 2016
Swimmin’ in the Playground - Fifty24SF Gallery - San Francisco2016
Out with a Bang! - Book and Job Gallery - San Francisco 2015
Black Mail - Luggage Store Gallery - San Francisco 2015 

RESIDENCIES
The Cabin: La Brea Artist Residency - Los Angeles - 2021

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
de Young Museum - San Francisco, CA - 2022
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - San Francisco, CA - 2021
Svane Family Foundation - 2021
City and County of San Francisco - 2019
Museum of African Diaspora - 2018