Bisila Noha Spain, b. 1988

Overview

Bisila Noha (b. 1988, Zaragoza, Spain) is a ceramic artist whose practice centers on overlooked craft traditions, particularly those shaped by women in the Global South. Drawing on her Spanish and Equatorial Guinean heritage, she reflects on the multiplicity of identity while challenging Western hierarchies that separate art and craft. Her work incorporates clay, plaster, and bronze, using techniques such as throwing, coiling, carving, and casting. Noha often returns to the vessel as a central form, creating clay pieces that resemble aged water jugs with weathered, textured surfaces. These tactile forms evoke an archaeology of use and memory, referencing ancestral tools and the labor of women. Her recent bronze sculptures were developed during a residency in Benin, Nigeria, where she worked alongside local artisans to explore the region’s bronze-working traditions. The resulting works recall ceremonial artifacts, imbued with communal meaning.

In 2025, kó sponsored Bisila Noha's artist residency with G.A.S. Foundation in Lagos, Nigeria.

Biography

Bisila Noha was born in 1988 and grew up in Zaragoza, Spain. Her mother was from Noviercas, Soria and her father was from the Bubi people in Baney, Equatorial Guinea. She moved to Madrid for university, graduating with an undergraduate degree in translation and a master's degree in international relations. After graduation, her professional career brought her to Madrid, Leipzig, Vienna, and San Francisco. In 2013, Noha moved to London, United Kingdom to pursue an opportunity at an advertising agency. In 2022, Noha held her first solo exhibition, ‘Uprooting, re-rooting: Matter and Construction of the self’, in Bordeaux.

Noha’s work is in the collections of the the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Crafts Council, Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, and the National Museum of Scotland. Her work has been featured in the Financial Times and the New York Times. Noha lives and works in London.

Works