Contemporary Art in Context: Jeffrey Gibson

Contemporary art by Native artists in the United States has experienced an ongoing renaissance from the mid-1900s to the present. There has been a large-scale expansion of art forms and interpretations of Western conceptions of abstraction, and a variety of aesthetic approaches. Interdisciplinary artist Jeffrey Gibson’s work almost seems to exist outside of time. His rigorous engagement with Indigenous and Western cultural and aesthetic traditions, alongside contemporary popular culture, results in works that invite recognition and connection across audiences.

Inspiration, Artworks, and Process
Initially a painter, Gibson has developed an interdisciplinary art practice and hybrid visual vocabulary characterized by bold color, vibrant pattern, and text. His art reflects American and cultural histories through a mix of references to popular subcultures, literature, and global aesthetic, cultural, and artistic traditions. Around 2010, Gibson began to incorporate materials and techniques—such as rawhide and beadwork—that reference his heritage. His bold color mixing in repeating geometric patterns often creates an Op Art–like aesthetic, while his distinctive rendition of text is reminiscent of 1960s psychedelic rock posters.

Gibson’s most recent major triumph came in 2024, when he became the first Indigenous artist to have a solo exhibition in the US Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, an event that serves as a major forum for global exchanges of artistic ideas. His solo exhibition, The Space in Which to Place Me, was a swirl of brilliant color and vibrant pattern across sculpture, painting, and multimedia works that explored ideas of belonging, identity, and resilience. It featured a video titled She Never Dances Alone, which honors Indigenous women.

The establishment of the Santa Fe Indian School in 1932 marked the beginning of efforts to encourage the production of scenes depicting Native cultures, addressing the issue of preserving what was perceived as a vanishing way of life. The Santa Fe School encouraged artists to produce scenes of Native life using Western media, without requiring the use of traditional Western conventions of perspective, proportion, or stringent realism. Another important development in the evolution of contemporary Native American art was the founding of the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 1962 on the site of the Santa Fe School. Contemporary Native artists today follow processes that involve the subtle reorientation, transposition, and modification of traditional aesthetic practices.

About the Artist
Jeffrey Gibson was born in Colorado Springs in 1972 and is of Mississippian band Choctaw and Cherokee descent. He grew up in the United States, Germany, and Korea while his father served as an engineer for the US Department of Defense. Because he and his family had to move frequently, Gibson has indicated that he became skilled at adapting to the variety of cultures he experienced while growing up. This may explain why, despite the wide range of forms in his work, Gibson sees himself as a “collage artist,” adept at layering multiple cultural phenomena into his art.

What is a typical workday like for you?
JG: On a typical studio day, I come in and try to work on some drawings and some small works on paper. I’m experimenting with materials right now. Then I will give direction to my studio team members on works in progress. Iʼm generally working between two spaces: one is a private workspace, and the other is working with a team. I generally keep pretty standard hours, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday through Friday. I like it to feel both as fluid and routine as possible.

How do textiles influence your use of pattern and your practice in general?
JG: Going back, even twenty-five years ago, I thought of textiles mainly as domestic fabrics for clothing and upholstery, and now I think of textiles more in the realm of fiber art. I think about the materiality of weaving and the challenge of working with nontraditional materials like textiles. I am now able to tell when Iʼm looking at a really complicated pattern, as opposed to a standard repeat. The complicated patterns are interesting because I can tell how much craft and structure go into making that happen. I love it when I am unable to figure something out, like how a pattern works or how a complicated weaving is done.

When working with beads or quills, do you follow traditional processes for using those materials?
JG: The people from whom Iʼve learned have taught me what I’ve come to understand as relatively traditional processes, but I also know that there are many different ways that people have used both quills and beadwork. I work with about four different kinds of beadwork in the studio and probably over ten different sizes and types of beads, and experiment with them. In that sense, it becomes less traditional. But every time I look at historical objects, I continue to be blown away by how makers in the past used beads and quillwork. Itʼs very expansive. I donʼt do very much quillwork, so oftentimes Iʼve just used the quills themselves. I do know how to do wrapped beadwork, but we donʼt do very much of it in the studio.

What determines your brilliant palette?
JG: I would say I was a naive colorist very early on and didnʼt really indulge in the use of color, because people were oftentimes quite critical of it. And at some point, it became a sort of rebellion to use more and more color. Now, twenty-five years later, I feel really confident in my ability to make colors activate each other in specific ways. I do play and experiment a lot with color, and I think my eye and perception have become keenly attuned to color at this point.

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself as an emerging artist? Or what advice do you have for young aspiring artists?
JG: Itʼs maybe the advice you donʼt want to hear—being an artist and wanting to support yourself as an artist is a very privileged position. There are plenty of people who are really great artists who are not pursuing a career as an artist. I do think that you have to look for your audience, and your audience may not be in a position right now to support you, other than as a community. Once I started having opportunities and successes, I was very grateful for the community that I had in New York City, particularly with other Native artists. But you donʼt know when that audience is going to show up. I would advise students or young artists to be very clear with themselves about whatʼs important to them in their work, and to continue pursuing it.

What are you working on currently, and what upcoming projects can you share with our readers?
JG: Iʼm currently working on performance programming for my exhibition at Kunsthaus Zürich, boshullichi / inlʋchi – we will continue to change. I will debut a new mural installation at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art later this spring. Educational programming from the US Pavilion—including the Venice Educator Cohort and the Native Knowledge 360° Curriculum—is debuting this month (March 2026). My installations on the façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at MASS MoCA are still on view. And after these past very busy five years, Iʼm just trying to be in the studio and focus on making new work.

Layered Histories

Jeffrey Gibson creates vibrant works that fuse Indigenous cultural traditions with contemporary global practices.