SOAD KADER
Seeing and feeling different types of space, especially the change of perspective like looking down from a rooftop, mountain top or from an airplane intrigues me. I enjoy the ambiguity and call to look more closely, to enjoy the details and abstractions of the moment. Noticing colors, lines, shapes, light or movement allowing me to linger, imagine, and connect to my own sensations and to those of my surroundings. Creating space to be open to observe before the filters of the mind decides it knows. Point of view and quality of attention affects what and how we see, feel, and understand about ourselves, each other and our environment.
Growing up with my Egyptian Muslim scientist father and my Basque-Italian-American Catholic do-it-yourselfer maker mother, first in megacity Cairo, Egypt, and then in college town Davis, California was a colorful adventure of multilayered moving and contrasting parts - a living kaleidoscope. Navigating nuances of who I was and how I fit in as a seven year old newly arrived in the United States was awkward and confusing. I dreaded the endless questioning “What are you?” or responding to my name at roll call. I didn't know the "right" answers to be accepted and felt treated as other, outsider. To blend in I asked my parents, “Can I change my name to Susan?” They said no.
We try to learn the codes of behavior or appearance that will gain us acceptance from the groups we are a part of or want to be a part of but when this doesn't match who we actually are often feel emotional, physical, or spiritual discomfort from this lack of alignment or lie we are living. Rather than fitting in, we need to feel belonging. I explore ideas of belonging, self empowerment and wholeness stemming from my personal journey navigating the in-between spaces of my multiracial, multicultural, immigrant heritage and experiences. In my quest to feel comfortable in my own skin as I am, I found that developing and nourishing self love and self acceptance practices are keys to feeling belonging and wellbeing.
Love yourself. Love yourself. Love yourself. This imperative is the motto of belonging. Our sense of freedom and joy depends on it. When we truly love ourselves, we don't need to be someone or something else. When we love ourselves, our sense of separation softens, the need to dominate dissolves. Comparison and competition clear away in the presence of self-love. Hierarchy and oppression crumble. We belong. ~Sebene Selassie
EDUCATION
BA, Art Studio, magna cum laude, University of California, Davis
Faculty: Squeak Carnwath, Roy De Forest, Mike Henderson, David Hollowell,
Manuel Neri, Roland Peterson, Lucy Puls, Cornelia Schulz, Wayne Thiebaud
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2022 Inner Worlds - Knowing Ourselves, China Basin Building, Lobby 6, UCSF, San Francisco, CA
2022 Pictures of People, digital exhibit with Alice Neel: People Come First, at de Young Museum
2022 A Window Through, Bioneers at The Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA
2022 Women Rising, Seven Eighty Valencia, San Francisco, CA
2022 Reassessing Values, City Hall, San Francisco, CA
2021 SPARCX, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2021 BASL, Voss Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2020 FourSquared, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2020 Women Rising, The Drawing Room, San Francisco, CA
2019 Inner Worlds, China Basin, San Francisco, CA
2019 Time, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2019 Movers & Shakers, The Drawing Room, San Francisco, CA
2018 Art & Activism: Drawing the Line, Children's Museum of the Arts, New York, NY
2018 Diptychs, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2018 The Excitement of Suggestion, China Basin, San Francisco, CA
2018 ka'POW!, Heroic Women, Pacific Pinball Museum, Alameda, CA
2017 With Liberty and Justice for Some, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
2017 Resistance, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2017 Sanctuary City: With Liberty and Justice for Some, San Francisco Arts Commission Main Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2017 With Liberty and Justice for Some, Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2016 Identity Arc Gallery, San Francisco & Of Light & Color, PRF 711, San Francisco CA
2015 Artifacts, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA & Resolution, by ArtSpan Arc Gallery, San Francisco ,CA
2014 Periphery, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA & Salt Water Cures, Castro Wellness, SF, CA
2013 The Third Mind, Big Umbrella Studios, San Francisco, CA
2013 Memento, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2012 Bs.As. SF, two cities, one spirit?, Misho Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2012 Golden Gate, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2011 SoMa Artists at ArtHaus, San Francisco, CA
2011 San Francisco Summer, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2011 Secession Art and Design, San Francisco, CA
2010 Pairs, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Ritual, Cara and Cabezas Contemporary, Kansas City, MO
2010 Be Present: Connect, Mamá Art Cafe, San Francisco, CA
AWARDS - HONORS - PRESS - RESIDENCIES
2022 Received a "Certificate of Honor" from the City & County of San Francisco in recognition of my commitment to enriching lives through art.
2022 ArtSpan Reassessing Values interview with Soad Kader
2021 ArtSpan "Campaign Collateral Competition:Top Winner" - "Inner Worlds" portraits promote SFOS on the guide cover, billboards, busses.
2017 Huffington Post Artists Mobilize: With Liberty and Justice for Some . . . An Exhibition Honoring Immigrants" Amy Pleasant, January 19, 2017
2017 KQED “Portraits of an Immigrant-Filled Nation at Walter Maciel Gallery” Sarah Hotchkiss & Kelly Whalen, 2/8/17 - Video here.
2015 Co-Chair for ArtSpan San Francisco Open Studios Committee
2014 ArtSpan Spotlight Artist for SFOS Guide - Theme: "Resilience"
2006 Fundación Valparaíso Artist Residency for one month in Mojácar, Spain
COLLECTORS
Argentina, Egypt, France, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Spain, South Africa, Thailand, United States, Venezuela