KAREN HAMPTON

BIO

Karen Hampton is an internationally recognized conceptual artist, addressing issues of colorism and kinship within the African American community. Hampton’s art practice is the synthesis of memory, history, time and cloth. She has found that working with historical narratives provides a vehicle to bring silenced voices into the American landscape. Dating back to her early childhood, cloth and the photographic image have been a part of her consciousness. 

Hampton, a student of cultural relationships seeks to break through stereotypes and address issues related to being an African American woman. Steeped in oral history her artwork is an expression of the narrative.  Frequently referring to herself as a griot (storyteller), she imparts conceptualized stories about the “other” in society. Through her artwork, Hampton transcends traditional storytelling and reframes the story to include frequently forgotten voices. Hampton’s training is in the fiber arts and anthropology. She is a weaver, dyer, painter, embroiderer, and storyteller. The canvas of her artwork is a coarsely woven cloth that is aged and imbued with conceptualized images of a forgotten part of the American story. Using images and text she embeds the cloth with the hopes and visions of African American lives, telling ancestral stories from her perspective. 

Hampton’s artwork is a study and reflection of the racial time she lives in. Her use of ancestor’s stories to help contextualize the depth of racism and provide a context to help us to understand it at its systemic root. Whether reflecting on Hampton’s childhood or visions of her ancestors’ lives, she is always standing up for the underrepresented and telling an inclusive American story. Hampton’s goal is that her art will ensure that all of our ancestors, particularly those whose stories have remained invisible, will be known and can leave their mark on the earth and on our collective historical narrative.That whether woven or stitched, every time her weft crosses the warp or her needle pierces the cloth, she is reaching through another layer of the scorched earth that slavery has left behind. Hampton’s artwork is held in the collection of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum, Hamilton College, Clinton NY and the Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii and she received the coveted Eureka Prize from the Fleishhacker Foundation, San Francisco, CA in 2008.