Jeffrey Gibson | |
|---|---|
 Gibson speaking at the Eiteljorg Museum in 2009. His artwork Mythmaker is in the foreground and Second Nature in the background. | |
| Born | March 31, 1972 Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S. |
| Nationality | Mississippi Choctaw, United States |
| Education | School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Royal College of Art |
| Known for | Painting, sculpture |
| Spouse | Rune Olsen |
| Website | jeffreygibson |
Jeffrey A. Gibson (born 1972)[1] is an American Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee painter and sculptor.[2] He has lived and worked in Brooklyn, New York; Hudson, New York; and Germantown, New York.[3][4]
In 2024, Gibson will represent the United States at the Venice Biennale, where he will be the first indigenous artist to have a solo exhibition in the American pavilion.[5][6]
Jeffrey A. Gibson was born on March 31, 1972, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.[1][4] As a child, he lived in North Carolina, New Jersey, West Germany, and South Korea,[4][7] moving frequently because his father worked for the United States Department of Defense.[4]
Gibson earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1995 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.[4] In 1998 he received his Master of Fine Arts from the Royal College of Art in London, where he focused on painting.[8][4] His graduate education was sponsored by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Gibson remarked on this opportunity provided for him: "My community has supported me ... My chief felt that me going there, being a strong artist, made him stronger."[9]
Gibson has identified as queer and gay.[10][4] He is married to Norwegian artist Rune Olsen, and together they have a daughter and son.[4]
"Utopia was important for me to envision and relates to my being Native American and having grown up solely in a Western consumer culture. My desire to act out the role of an explorer depicting an inviting landscape, via painting and specimen retrieval, was a reaction to Native tribes' being consistently described as part of a nostalgic and romantic vision of pre-colonized Indian life. The aesthetic of these paintings and sculptures came from turn-of-the-century Iroquois whimsies, contemporary and historic powwow regalia, cultural adornment of non-Western cultures, techno rave and club culture, and earlier utopian models."
– Jeffrey Gibson[11]
Gibson is an artist in residence at Bard College, where he also teaches in studio art courses.[3] In 2010 he was a visiting artist at the California College of the Arts.[3]
In order to keep regular studio hours, Gibson prefers to work between the hours of 10 am and 6 pm. His computer, cell phone, and a movie are generally at his reach if a break is needed while working. Music usually plays in the background, sometimes random, sometimes a specific record with genres ranging from African funk, jazz, punk, pop music, rap, R&B, disco, as well as East Indian drumming.[12]
Gibson's art deals with issues of identity and labels.[13] His work has featured the use of mixed media including Native American beadwork, trading post blankets, metal studs, fringe, and jingles.[4] Airbrushing is another common tool used in his paintings, sculptures, and prints, incorporating oil paint and spray paint to create neon colored abstracts such as Singular (2008) and Submerge (2007). These works also find inspiration in graffiti, reflective of Gibson's urban life in New York City.[14] Gibson is represented by Roberts Projects in Los Angeles, Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York, and Stephen Friedman Gallery in London.
Gibson draws influence in materials, processes, media, and iconographies.[13] He has found inspiration in events that revolve around dancing, specifically from Leigh Bowery and his dramatic nightclub persona.[15] Pow-wows, nightclubs, and raves provide contrasts as rural and urban venues, serving as spaces for dancing, movement, and dramatic fashion/regalia. Keeping with regalia, 19th-century Iroquois beadwork also provides inspiration, as colorful beads often find their way into Gibson's artworks. Gibson also provides his own spin on graffiti, which is seen frequently in his works.[16][9][17]
He also credits his nomadic lifestyle as a major influence, bringing together what he describes as:
... varying aesthetics of each place. Some have had specific cultural aesthetics, language barriers, cultural barriers, etcetera. These differences funnel through me, a queer Native male born toward the end of the 20th century and entering the 21st century. I consider this hybrid in the construction of my work and attempt to show that complexity.[12]
Gibson's practice has involved painting in oil and acrylic on rawhide-clad wood panels. He is recycling found objects such as antique shaving mirrors and ironing boards and covers them in untanned deer, goat, or elk skin. Gibson combines domestic, Native American, and Hard-edge modernist references. His punching bag made from found Everlast punching bags, U.S. Army wool blankets, glass beads, tin jingles, and the artist's repurposed paintings exemplify the dialogue between mainstream pop culture and Native American powwow aesthetics.
His work Document, 2015 (2015) is made with acrylic and graphite on deer rawhide, hung with steel spikes.[18] Under Cover (2015) was a made with rawhide stretched over wood panel.[18]
Before that Gibson's most notable works, his at times 3-D wall abstracts, have been described as "atmospheric landscapes". Working in oil paint he also brings together objects that have become a signature to his works: pigmented silicon, urethane foam, and beads.[19]
Alive showed as part of the Desert x exhibition in the Coachella Valley from February 25 to April 30, 2017
Creating his own totem sculptures, in 2009 Gibson produced the Totems series for an exhibition at Sala Diaz in San Antonio, Texas. This series of sculptures involved Gibson arriving five days before the opening to put together a collection of found objects to create what have been described, by the artist, as "fantasy s e x partners, objects of desire".
The Totems feature objects such as mannequins acquired from Craigslist, a wig, plastic flowers, toys, cowboy boots, flower pots, his signature spray paint and other objects. In the end Gibson created two human-like figures and a totem pole from the flower pots. Writer Ben Judson described Totems as way Gibson "uses the stereotyping of his own people as a way of exploring the use of metaphor in identity formation, cultural critique and consumerism without forfeiting lyricism or indulging in self-righteousness (apart, that is, from his press release)."[11][20]
Gibson's abstract works have been compared to artists such as Martin Johnson Heade, Cy Twombly, Chris Ofili, and Indigenous Australian art. Artist and poet Jimmie Durham declared that Gibson "might be our Miles Davis", our referring to Native America. While some celebrate him as a Native artist, others celebrate his ability to move freely in and out of Native and non-Native contemporary art worlds.[9][14]
Gibson has also exhibited at numerous events such as the New Art Dealers Alliance Fair, ARCOmadrid, as well as many private galleries and public institutions.[25]
In May 2023, Gibson filed a lawsuit against the Kavi Gupta gallery in United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, alleging that the gallery has withheld over $600,000 from the artist.[6][28]
