COVID-19 PAGES Featured Artist – AZIZA CLAUDIA GIBSON-HUNTER
Ms. Gibson-Hunter was born in Philadelphia, PA. She graduated from Temple University (BS), and Howard University (MFA). Aziza attended Bob Blackburn’s Printmaking Studio, the New York Arts Students League, and later received a fellowship from the Bronx Museum of Art. She joined “Where We At“, a group of Black women artists in the early 1980s. Ms. Gibson-Hunter was an administrator at Parsons School of Design and a faculty member at Howard University and Bowie State University.
Aziza was awarded the Individual Artist Fellowship Program Grant, from the DC Commission of the Arts and Humanities in 2014, 2006, 2018, and 2020. Her work can be found in the collections of the Washington DC Art Bank, the Liberian Embassy, Montgomery County, Maryland, and other noted collections. She completed two public commissions for Washington, DC Department of General Services. The Wall of Unity (2017) and, ANCESTORS, (2019) are both located in Washington, DC public schools. In 2019 Aziza was a Pyramid Atlantic Denbo Fellow.
She is currently a cofounding member of Black Artists of DC, a member of WOAUA, and a post-studio member of STABLE, a Washington DC arts community. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. You can find more about Aziza on the digital archive JEMBE. Follow her studio in Washington, DC at #gibsonhunterstudio.
Aziza’s contribution to the COVID-19 PAGES is “Garvey’s Ghost,” of which she states:
Given the sober times in which we find ourselves, a whirlwind has formed. The forces of millions of our ancestors are here to assist us by reinforcing our grit, faith, tenacity, our creativity, and sense of humor. We have only to call their names. Those in power say they want things to go back to normal. That normal is powered by race, class, and gender oppression. There is something more that must be born despite all of the death. May our ancestors and Garvey’s ghost help to give us both the direction and courage to usher in a just world.
To visit COVID-19 PAGES: The Influence & Inspiration of Women, click on the following link: https://wellsinternationalfoundation.org/covid-19-pages-exhibit/
