Claudia “Aziza” Gibson-Hunter is a mixed media artist She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Temple University, (BS), and received her MFA from Howard University. 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 1980’s. Ms. Gibson-Hunter was an administrator at Parsons School of Design and a faculty member of the fine arts departments of Howard University, and Bowie State University.

She combines painting, collage, and printmaking to create abstract works surrounding narratives, of agency, healing, memory, expressed through a condensed notion of time. Aziza utilizes color, texture, rhythm, pattern, as tools and acrylic paints, colored pencil, handmade and commercial papers are materials most frequently employed. Unusual juxtapositions of colors, media, technique, and forms help to identify her aesthetic. She is open to other media if it will clarify a narrative. The deckled edge, and unrefined finish of her of handmade paper is for Gibson-Hunter an appreciation of the material’s natural beauty. The jagged peripheries of her work denote a refusal to be contained. Works that are three dimensional are examples of her ongoing exploration of Blackstraction.

Ms. Gibson-Hunter 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 Dandelion (see PROJECT 2020), both Black female artist groups. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. In 2022, Playing to WIN #2, will be installed in the United States Embassy in Togo. You can learn more about Aziza on the digital archive JEMBE. Ms. Gibson-Hunter has two studios in Washington, DC.