Contact NIAD Art Center’s Gallery with inquiries: gallery@niadart.org
About Dorian Reid
“Drawing inspiration from diverse interests – including animals and the environment, identity, family history, and civil rights activism, Dorrie Reid’s disarming works reflect a joyful approach to art-making. Endlessly imaginative, her artistic practice becomes a natural extension of memory and personal experience.
Born and raised in the Bay Area, Dorrie Reid was first introduced to art-making early on in school, primarily through drawing. Reid currently attends NIAD Art Center’s studio three days a week, where she has worked across a wide range of media over the past two decades. Recurring themes for Reid are significant seasons and times of year, as well as numerous iterations of the Black Panther slogan “All Power to the People,” realized as text-based prints, drawings, and elaborate quilts.
While Reid will sometimes produce functional vessels, her focus lies largely in playful ceramic depictions of exotic African mammals, wildcats, lop-eared rabbits, kittens, and horses. Incredibly evocative, this standout body of work carries the viewer through a shifting spectrum of wild personalities and emotional impressions: drowsy, startled, forlorn, cheerful, listless, rabid. Often both charming and unsettling, these objects bring to mind Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran’s ceramic monkeys, while also sharing remarkable similarities with Raquel Albarran’s vibrant tableaus. Asymmetrical facial structures and emblematic features remain consistent throughout – bulging eyeballs, undulating lips, flaring nostrils, and lolling tongues.
Working primarily from memory, her chosen subjects serve as initial guides for the art-making process, which seems to favor the exploration of materials and ideas surrounding a particular animal, rather than accurate representation. Occasionally she will use source imagery to mimic the coat markings of wildcats or distinctive horse stars and blazes.” (from Dorrie Reid in Disparate Minds)
Exhibition History
Hurricane Dorian, curated by Dorian Reid // NIAD Online Exhibition // June 2022
And Then Some… // NIAD Annex Exhibition // May 2022
DreamForms, curated by Lauren Ari and Julio Del Rio // NIAD Online Exhibition // March 2022
Auctionauts // NIAD Online Exhibition // March 2022
Day or Night it Looks Like Night, curated by Liliana Herrera // NIAD Online Exhibition // February 2022
A Year Through the Windows // A Retrospective of NIAD’s 2021 Windows Exhibitions // December 2021 (online exhibition)
Future History: The Katz Legacy // Christie’s Auction House, San Francisco // December 2021
Never look Down On Anybody Unless You’re Helping Him Up // Kapp Kapp Philadelphia 2020
Hailing From Parts Unknown // organized By Curtis Turner NIAD Art Center 2019
CE x CG X NIAD // Minnesota Street Projects San Francisco 2019
Books, Man // organized by Mike Monteiro NIAD Art Center 2019
¡Trio! // Roll Up Project Oakland 2018
Guerneville // organized By Gerasimos Floratos and Ross Simonini NIAD Art Center October 2018
Prints: An Overview NIAD Art Center 2018
Give A Little Take A Little: Real Time & Space at NIAD // organized By Lexa Walsh NIAD Art Center 2018
Cyrano // organized By Em Kettner NIAD Art Center 2018
Indeterminate Space // organized by Anthony Piñata NIAD Art Center 2018
All Of The Light // organized by Gina Borg NIAD Art Center 2017
Thread Heads // Berkeley Art Center 2017
The Witnesses // organized by Cliff Hengst and Scott Hewicker NIAD Art Center 2017
The Language of Line // organized by Susan Alexander NIAD Art Center 2017
Hanging On a Thread: Fiber Art From NIAD Art Center // Contra Costa County McBrien Administrative Building Martinez 2017
Flying Like A Rock // Public Annex Portland Oregon 2017
Long Term Exhibition // organized by Katie Johnson Rep Nancy Skinner’s Office Suite Oakland 2017
Handbills // NIAD Art Center 2017
Word Play // organized by Kate Klingbeil NIAD Art Center 2017
Igneous Intrusions // organized by Jon Shibata NIAD Art Center 2017
Mayor Tom Butt Selects The Art Of NIAD// Richmond Mayor’s Suite Richmond 2017
Creature Feature // organized by John Casey NIAD Art Center 2017
Souls And Scenarios // organized by Gina Borg NIAD Art Center 2016
The Table Show // NIAD Art Center 2016
Party Animals! // organized by Katie Johnson NIAD Art Center 2016
Mayor Tom Butt Selects The Art Of NIAD// Richmond Mayor’s Suite Richmond 2016
Disability Awareness Month // Fenwick & West San Francisco, Menlo Park and Seattle 2015
Peacable Kingdom: The Creatures of Dorrie Reid // NIAD Art Center 2015
Making Friends // organized by John Casey NIAD Art Center 2015
City In Motion // NIAD Art Center 2014
Ebony + Ivory // organized by Katie Johnson NIAD Art Center 2014
Diamond Dogs Pet Supply // NIAD Art Center 2014
Recent Press
Disparate Minds: Dorrie Reid (December 2019)