b. 1986, Jacksonville, Arkansas, USA

Dr. Ferren Gipson's practice engages with materiality, colour, & form, drawing on the visual language of abstraction & Black Southern American textile traditions. Gipson works with a blend of sewn and handwoven materials, pushing both the materials themselves and the conventional form of the quilt and woven material. Colour is a constant preoccupation, and she works intuitively and improvisationally to produce expressive, even painterly textile works. Her practice draws on her own pull towards abstraction, alongside Black Southern American textile and spiritual traditions, recovering modes of working within her own family history in particular. For Gipson, making is both research and ritual—study and intuition—and is deeply tied to ancestral legacies. She is intrigued by the ways skill and creativity pass between generations of women, and by what it means to bear the fruit of seeds planted by our foremothers.

Her work has been exhibited at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, CA and Somerset, UK; UNIT London, UK; Paul Smith Gallery, London UK; and Featherstone Center for the Arts, Oak Bluffs, MA.

Working as both artist and researcher, Gipson has been named one of Apollo Magazine’s ‘40 under 40,’ with her art research and projects exploring themes spanning popular culture, materiality, modernity, power, and iconography. She is an award-winning author of Women’s Work (2022) and the critically acclaimed The Ultimate Art Museum (2021), and as a dynamic storyteller, has contributed to the Financial Times and other publications. She has also curated exhibitions for UNIT London and the London Art Fair.

Gipson holds a PhD in the History of Art from SOAS, University of London. She lives and works in London.