Women’s Work Women’s Work: From feminine arts to feminist art (2022)
by Ferren Gipson | 14 June 2022
History of art and Textile artworks
This powerful and insightful work offers a bold celebration of the innovative, brilliant artists reclaiming the idea of ‘women’s work’. In the history of western art, decorative and applied arts – including textiles and ceramics – have been separated from the ‘high arts’ of painting and sculpture and deemed to be more suitable for women. Artists began to reclaim and redefine these materials and methods, energizing them with expressions of identity and imagination.

Women’s Work tells the story of this radical change, highlighting some of the modern and contemporary artists who dared to defy this hierarchy and who, through, experimentation and invention, transformed their medium. The work of these women has helped underscore the ongoing value of these art forms within the history of art, championing ‘women’s work’ as powerful mediums worthy of celebration. With biographical entries on each artist featured, as well as beautiful images of their artworks, Women’s Work raises up the work of these visionary and groundbreaking artists, telling their stories and examining their artistic legacies.

Ferren Gipson is an art historian and artist exploring themes of politics, popular culture, and identity in modern and contemporary visual culture. She is the author of Women’s Work and The Ultimate Art Museum, and as a dynamic storyteller, has contributed to the Financial Times and hosted the Art Matters podcast. She has previously taught for the Courtauld Institute and SOAS, delivered numerous talks for institutions including TED and Royal Academy of Art, and was named one of Apollo Magazine’s ’40 under 40 Thinkers’ in crafts. Within her art practice, Ferren explores themes of spirituality, materiality, and matrilineal ties through textiles. She has previously shown her work with Hauser & Wirth, Unit London, and Paul Smith Space.

Topics in her research include exploring intersections between art and popular culture, highlighting the work of women artists, and political themes in modern Chinese art. Within her textile practice, she explores themes of labour, matrilineal connections, materiality, and colour. She holds a Doctorate from SOAS, University of London.

Gee’s Bend Quilting Community, Alabama, USA
Situated on the banks of the Alabama River, since the early 1800s, this geographically isolated Black settlement has given rise to over five generations of Black American quiltmakers possessing creative talents unparalleled in American art. A tradition passed down from mothers to daughters, aunts to nieces, and nurtured by the area’s quilt making community — continues to this day.

The quilts provide outlets for creative expression for Black women living in harsh conditions in the Jim Crow South, as well as utilitarian objects made out of necessity. The creative history of this unique community and its handiwork, starting with the fact of slavery’s enduring legacy — many quiltmakers are direct descendants of the enslaved people forced to labour at the cotton plantation established by enslaver Joseph Gee in 1816.