Image description: A photograph of historic white wooden paneled row houses. The house in the center lot has blue painted sidewalk and floor entrance to the front porch. The front yard has blue flowers, grass and a white bench. A large black and white photograph is displayed over the front house windows.
Leah Ra’chel Gipson is a multidisciplinary artist and scholar based in Panama City, Florida, and Chicago, Illinois, respectively the traditional homelands of Chatot, Yuchi, Muscogee (Creek) Nations, and the Council of the Three Fires: The Potawatomi, Odawa, and Ojibwe Nations, and the Ho’Chunk, Meskwaki, Sauk, and Miami Nations. Leah facilitates hyperlocal, community projects that engage Black culture and imagines critical “call and response” environments. She explores race and gender through family history, popular media, and archives using image, sound, textile, and installation, rooted in mixed traditions of Black feminism and Black church. Leah received her master’s degrees in art therapy and theological studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and McCormick Theological Seminary. She received her bachelor of fine arts from the University of Central Florida. Leah is an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a faculty member at the Center for Religion and Psychotherapy Chicago. Her work has been featured at the South Side Community Art Center, Jane Addams Hull House Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Netflix, Project Row Houses, Nawat Fes, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Image description: A circular portrait photograph of a woman wearing long dark braids, and a blue jacket. She is smiling near green and white Moroccan tile.