JEFFREY A.  GIBSON,  born on this date in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is a self-identified Native American artist, painter and sculptor. His parents came from a background of poverty and both attended boarding schools where the Native American children were often abused. His father worked for the Department of Defense as a civil engineer. As a child, he lived in North Carolina, New Jersey, West Germany, and South Korea, moving frequently because his father worked for the United States Department of Defense.

Gibson earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1995 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1998 he received his Master of Fine Arts from the Royal College of Art in London, where he focused on painting. 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.”

Gibson is an artist in residence at Bard College, where he also teaches in studio art courses. In 2010 he was a visiting artist at the California College of the Arts. 

Gibson’s art deals with issues of identity and labels. His work has featured the use of mixed media including Native American beadwork, trading post blankets, metal studs, fringe, and jingles. 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 and Submerge. These works also find inspiration in graffiti, reflective of Gibson’s urban life in New York City. Gibson is represented by Roberts Projects in Los Angeles, Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York, and Stephen Friedman Gallery in London.

In 2024, Gibson represented the United States in the Venice Biennale with a solo survey exhibition in the United States Pavilion, titled The Space in Which to Place Me. The title of the show is from a line in a poem by Layli Long Soldier. The work referenced politics in relation to Indigenous and a range of American histories. Artworks included paintings, sculpture, flags, video and beadwork rendered in psychedelic colors. The New York Times describeshis work as having “political valences” and also”many layers of form and meaning.”

He is the first Indigenous artist to represent the United States with a full pavilion show at the Biennale. 

Gibson identifies as queer and gay. He is married to Norwegian artist Rune Olsen, and together they have a daughter and son.