Maggie Thompson

One of the featured artists in Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023

A woman sits making art. White string goes diagonally across her face.

Catherine “Maggie” Thompson (Fond du Lac Ojibwe; born Minneapolis, MN, 1989; resides St. Paul, MN, with a studio in Minneapolis) is a textile artist and designer who derives inspiration from her Ojibwe heritage, family history, and the contemporary Native American experience. Thompson pushes the viewer’s understanding of textile art by combining photographs, found objects, stockings, beadwork, and more. Through large-scale work and installations, she brings form to emotional experiences and creates a visual way to process complex topics. 

 

Thompson received her BFA in textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2013. She had her first solo exhibition, Where I Fit, at All My Relations Gallery in Minneapolis in 2014. Since then, Thompson has exhibited at regional institutions such as the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, North Dakota. In 2015, she received support from the Minnesota State Arts Board Cultural Community Partnership Grant and the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Regional Fellowship to create a body of work for her exhibit at the Minnesota Textile Center, On Borrowed Time, which explores themes of grief around her experience of losing her father. 

 

In addition to her fine arts practice, Thompson runs Makwa Studio, a small knitwear business based in Minneapolis. She is also an emerging curator of contemporary Native art and has worked on exhibitions at the Two Rivers Gallery, the McKnight Foundation, and the Minnesota Museum of American Art. 

Image Gallery

Artist in Action: Maggie Thompson

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      Fond du Lac Ojibwe artist Maggie Thompson focuses on weaving and knitwear mediums, exploring themes of identity, grief and loss, and relationships. Her work also addresses her personal response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as traditions surrounding grief. This video is produced by Mountain Mover Media, in partnership with the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

      Maggie Thompson is one of the featured artists in Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023. The exhibition focuses on fresh and nuanced visions by six Native American or Alaska Native artists who express the honors and burdens that connect people to one another. This is the first time Native Americans and Alaska Native artists have been selected for the Renwick Invitational, dedicated to showcasing emerging and mid-career makers deserving of wider national recognition.