SOAD KADER
Seeing and feeling different types of environments, especially the change of perspective like looking down from a rooftop, mountain top or from an airplane holds my attention in the present moment. Creating opportunities to be open to observe before the filters of the mind decides it knows, I enjoy the ambiguity and call to look more closely, to enjoy the details and abstractions. Noticing colors, lines, shapes, light or movement allows me to linger and connect to my own sensations and to those of my surroundings to practice seeing anew and being ready to learn, change, grow. Point of view and quality of attention affects what and how we see, feel, and understand about ourselves, each other and our environment as well as which choices we make affecting both mundane and profound outcomes.
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. All of a sudden, everything I knew seemed wrong. I dreaded the endless questioning "What is that?" or “What are you?” or responding to my name at roll call. I didn't know the "right" answers to be accepted and included and felt like I didn't belong. To blend in a little better I asked my parents, “Can I change my name to Susan?” They said no.
We try to learn codes of behavior or appearance that will gain us acceptance from the groups we're a part of or want to be a part of but when this doesn't match who we actually are we often feel emotional, physical, or spiritual discomfort from this lack of alignment or lie we're living. When we become aligned with who we actually are, rather than fitting in, we grow to feel belonging within ourselves. I explore ideas of connection, empowerment, inclusion and wholeness from the inside out informed by my journey of stepping more fully into my mixed multiracial, multicultural, immigrant heritage and experiences living and learning on four continents over five decades.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Art, Art Studio, magna cum laude, 1990
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
2023 (Upcoming February 25 -April 8, 2023) 48 Pillars, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA
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 Carnaval San Francisco, 10th year participating in creation of LDG contingent performance on the streets of the Mission District, 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
2023 Artist-in-Residence, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA
2022 Meaning and Purpose: The Projects That Mattered - Meet Soad Kader (written interview)
2022 Licensed artwork to The C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco
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 (video interview)
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