Adia Millett

Adia Millett is acclaimed for her deep exploration of basic configurations, diverse expressive practices, and experimentation with mediums. Trained in the fine arts, art history, and the postmodernist theories of cultural studies, Millett conveys her felt concerns in the discourses of the domestic, the public sphere, gender positions, and spirituality through the interdependent form and content of the abstract compositions of her works.

Millett received a BFA from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. In 2001, she moved to New York for the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, followed by a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem. She lived and worked in New York for a decade, exhibiting in several high-profile group exhibitions, including "Freestyle" at The Studio Museum in Harlem (2001); "Living Units" at Triple Candie, New York (2003); "Black President" at The New Museum (2003); Greater New York at MoMA PS1 (2005); "Where is Here" at the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco (2017); "Black Refractions" at The Studio Museum in Harlem (2019).

Her solo exhibitions include "Wisdom Keepers" at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose (2023-2024); "You Will Be Remembered." at gdm Hong Kong (2022); "A Force of Nature" at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa (2022); "A Matter of Time" at gdm Hong Kong (2020); "Breaking Patterns" at the California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2019); and "The Privilege to Breathe" at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose (2019).

Millett has taught as an artist-in-residence at Columbia College Chicago, the University of California, Santa Cruz, Cooper Union, and California College of the Arts. Her work is held in the collections of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the California African American Museum, the Chase Center Art Collection in San Francisco, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York. Public commissions include Bay Area Energy Company, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in Oakland, the Bayfront Medical Building in San Francisco, Lowell Park and Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, and Facebook in Palo Alto.

In 2024, her Warrior's Portal was commissioned for the Chase Center Art Collection's Homegrown series in San Francisco. In 2026, Her work is featured in the group exhibition "Remixed: Entwined Histories and New Forms" at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.