Nafis' most recent solo exhibition with the gallery featured Hidden Topographies which employ crewel embroidery and needlework to at once obscure and reimagined written text; and God Helps Those Who Help Themselves continuing White’s inquiry into the life story of Emmanuel “Manna” Bernoon, a freed slave who founded Providence’s first restaurant in 1736, an Oyster & Ale House. For this work, White sourced local oysters from Oberlin and Gift Horse, cleaned and dried the shells and imbued them with gold leaf “to honor the Beauty, Resilience and Legacy of a People.”
Nafis M. White holds an MFA in Printmaking and Digital Media (2018) and BFA in Sculpture, concentration Art History (2015) from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; and studied at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK (2016). White’s work is in the permanent collection of the RISD Museum, Providence, RI; Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI; and The University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM. She is the recipient of a prestigious MacColl Johnson Fellowship (2023) and her work has been exhibited at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; First Black Biennial 2022, RISD Museum, Providence, RI; National Queer Arts Festival, San Francisco, CA; David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, RI; the New Museum, New York, NY; Goldsmiths, University of London; Autograph ABP, London; OXO Tower, London; and Overture Center for the Arts, Madison, WI. Recent Residencies include Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; Wheaton College Artist-in-Residence, Norton, MA; Iris Project Residency, Los Angeles, CA; and SPACES residency and exhibition, Cleveland, OH.