Jeffrey Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent,
incorporates visual cues from elements of his own identity into his images. In these prints, flat shapes and trippy color combine to form the lyrics of songs from his youth. Gibson’s use of lyrics refers to his time living in Chicago in the 1990s, where he found the house music scene ato be “a space carved out for people of different backgrounds coming together and celebrating each other, letting everything go and having a good time.”

The rainbow of color evokes his experience as a gay man in America: “My husband, my daughter, and I form a very mixed family in every way. Our backgrounds are Dominican, Puerto Rican, Norwegian, Cherokee, Choctaw. We have to generate traditions that support us because so many others won’t. In my family, we’re fans of believing that time moves on, that change happens. Having to rethink how you exist in this world is, for me, the nature of tradition.”
(Chad Alligood)