In Shaper of God: apple valley autonomy, American Artist celebrates the legacy of one of the most inventive science fiction writers in contemporary literature, Octavia E. Butler. This exhibition of sculpture and drawings is part of the artist’s multiyear effort of activations and reflects their complex engagement with the Butler archive at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, which houses over 8,000 objects donated by Butler after her passing in 2006.

American Artist, who was born and raised in Altadena, California, and legally changed their name in 2013, focused their research for this exhibition on Butler’s matrilineal heritage, with specific attention to her mother, Octavia M. Butler, who worked as a domestic in Pasadena in the mid-twentieth century; and Butler’s grandmother, Estella Butler, who owned a chicken ranch outside of Los Angeles in Apple Valley, California, in the early twentieth century. Despite modest means and intersecting oppressions, Butler’s mother and grandmother helped propel the young writer into a self-sustaining career as a renowned novelist. In the artworks on view, American Artist not only celebrates the prolific work that Butler produced from the 1960s to 2006, but also calls attention to these invisible familial supports that enabled her prolific practice.

American Artist | Shaper of God: apple valley autonomy is curated by Taylor Renee Aldridge, independent curator and Executive Director, Modern Ancient Brown Foundation.