Nearly 300 artists rent studio spaces in San Francisco’s iconic Hunters Point Shipyard, the U.S.-naval-base-turned-art-community in the Bayview. Among them is Malik Seneferu, longtime occupant of studio #2511, native San Franciscan and focus of “Malik Seneferu: A Retrospective” at the San Francisco Main Library.
“Even during my early practice, I understood that art was really my purpose for being here on this planet, and so I always took it very seriously. It’s saved me on so many levels, and allowed me to flourish in my own personal life,” says Seneferu, who will lead a walk-through of the show at an opening reception on Thursday.
Now several decades removed from that initial awareness of his raison d’être, Seneferu has amassed a body of work that includes thousands of pieces, including paintings, sculptures and assemblages.
“A Retrospective,” pulling from that vast repository, is on view Jan. 16 to April 20 as part of the library’s “More Than a Month” celebration of Black history and cultures. The program kicks off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, runs through February for Black History Month, and continues, as suggested in its title. Performances, hands-on activities, author readings, presentations and exhibits that align with this year’s national BHM theme of “African Americans and Labor” are among events in the lineup.
Thomas R. Simpson, founder and artistic director of the AfroSolo Arts Festival, and Peter Fitzsimmons, an actor, documentarian and the founding executive director of the Jazz Heritage Center (formerly in the Fillmore District), collaborated on creating Seneferu’s retrospective.
“They both have been following my artwork over the past 25 to 30 years, so they really wanted to highlight the work that I’ve been doing,” says Seneferu.
The exhibition, presented by AfroSolo and curated by Fitzsimmons, features “explosions in color; a legacy series [honoring] elders, sculptural works; an assemblage series; and reproductions of original artworks,” according to library website.
“A huge part [of the exhibition] was Thomas and Peter thinking of work that they knew me for. It also gave me the opportunity to present work that folks may not know of me creating,” he adds.
Fitzsimmons says, “Malik Seneferu will capture your heart and wake up your artistic sensibilities while sharing his universal themes of love, redemption and hope as seen in his Afro-American centric body of art. …Do not miss this gateway into Malik’s ongoing creative path!”
“Retrospective” includes “From the Hill and Beyond,” a series originally exhibited in the Bayview Opera House, where Seneferu early in his career was an artist-in-residence and the first artist to display work in the historic venue. The series includes colorful, abstract acrylic paintings of figures in homage to Black history and ancestors such as his grandmother.
The series title refers to Hunters Point, where Seneferu was born. “My mom, my grandmother, grew up there, and every time they would talk about it, I never heard them say ‘Bayview’ or ‘Hunters Point’; they would just say ‘the hill,’” he says.
Other pieces in the exhibition, such as “Brothas Untitled,” “Black Fist,” “Angela Davis” and “Maya’s Revenge” are a nod to Seneferu’s social justice interest and activism.
His work, he explains, corresponds with aspects of himself and his personal experiences, including those involving family.
“I was born in Hunters Point and raised in San Francisco—that’s how I like to put it, because we moved around a lot in the city when I was a kid. I went to several different elementary schools, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood with my mom, my little sister, and then later I had two younger brothers,” he says.
Tragedy befell one of his brothers, having an early, and lasting, impact on Seneferu, who says, “One of them, unfortunately, was taken away in Hunters Point by gunfire. … [D]ealing with that circumstance of reality kind of sculpted who I would become in my personal life.”
His initial interest in becoming an artist took shape when he was young: “I started to draw whatever I saw on TV from Saturday morning cartoons—the WBs [Warner Bros.] and Disneys and all of that stuff,” he says.
Bill Cosby’s “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” which ran from 1975-1985, grabbed his attention. It inspired him to create sketches of someone important in his life with whom he had spent limited time: his dad.
“My first try at really drawing someone was trying to draw my father, because I always wanted to see him when I was a kid. But there were some complications between him and my mom. They were youngsters in their 20s, trying to figure out life in California. My dad realized that he wasn’t going to financially make it, so he moved to Peoria, Illinois, and that was the last I heard of him. I was maybe 2 years old,” he says.
His father’s absence left room for imagination in terms of how Seneferu depicted him.
“I would draw pictures of my father, thinking that maybe he had some things going on, that he had his own business, or something like that. My mom, at the time, was a bank teller at Wells Fargo. She took me downtown, and I saw all the men walking around with suitcases. So I would draw pictures of my dad with a suitcase, maybe walking down the street. And you can see some of that in a lot of my works that I’ve done in the past 35 to 40 years,” Seneferu says.
Other influences include artist Dewey Crumpler, who Seneferu first encountered when visiting his grandmother at her Bayview barber shop on Third Street.
“I was 5 years old, and across the street, I saw a guy working on a mural, and I told my grandma, ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to do that.’ And it turns out it happened to be Dewey Crumpler,” he says.
Seneferu cites artist JoeSam., the former director of San Francisco’s Head Start art program (in which Seneferu took part) as another person who’s had an influence on his practice. JoeSam. also started the Shipyard Trust for the Arts (STAR) Artist in Residence Program in 1996. Seneferu was the first artist selected for the year-long program.
Seneferu was thankful to have spent some time with his mentor and friend before he died in June 2024. He says, “When he passed away, that was a really big deal for me, because he really kind of helped me solidify myself as a professional artist.”
Seneferu’s many years of making art —and a career out of it — prompted his development of the motto “Remain creative,” which he features on social media.
“You can create something that is rarely seen. It’s almost akin to a plant growing from the ground, or to a child being born. … My hope is that we can get more into the relationship of creating, that we can have a better relationship with the creative side [of things],” he says.
“A Retrospective” is indicative that Seneferu leads by example.
“Malik Seneferu: A Retrospective” opens with a 5:30 p.m. reception on Jan. 16 and runs through April 20 in the African American Center Exhibit Space, third floor, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin St., San Francisco. For information about the reception, visit sfpl.org/events/2025/. For details about the exhibition, go to sfpl.org/exhibits.
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