ABOUT ME
ABIGAIL POTTER-JAMES
FIBER + PERFORMANCE ARTIST
BASED IN CHICAGO + VIRGINIA
Abigail Potter-James is a multidisciplinary artist and third-year undergraduate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, her practice centers on the intersection of textiles and sculpture, with an increasing interest in performance as a way to impose her identity on her choice of materiality and material possibilities. Her work explores themes of racial injustice and colorism within the black community, femininity, and nostalgia, drawing from both personal and cultural experiences. Informed by her identity as a Caribbean woman and 2nd generation American, Abigail uses fiber-based processes such as quilting, embroidering, and sewing, mixed with sculptural forms to navigate how black bodies, heritage materials, and preexisting social structures carry intersect. Through her practice, she reflects on her own identity, power, and the ways her lived experience shapes the world around her.
She enjoys tactility and the physical processes involved in working with fiber. Through dyeing, weaving, and sewing, she closely engages with her materials, allowing the making process to shape and clarify her ideas. These more intuitive methods help her think through concepts as they emerge in the work itself, rather than letting the concept consume her art completely. She feels it allows the viewer to play around a bit more with her concepts. Abigail explores how meaning can be embedded in materials, techniques, and gestures, and how the movements of the body during creation carry cultural and political significance. By emphasizing process and touch, her practice highlights the relationship among material, maker, and meaning, revealing how certain acts of making can convey layered histories and identities when undertaken by different kinds of people.
Community engagement is central to Abigail’s practice, shaped by an upbringing grounded in shared stories and cultural exchange. Growing up within Caribbean and diasporic communities taught her to understand art as something that lives in relation to people, memory, and place. As a result, her work often exists in the conceptual realm, using raw, tactile materials to imply lived experience. Abigail is drawn to materials in their most direct states, such as dyed fiber, thread, cloth, and found elements, allowing their physical presence to carry meaning. Through this approach, she continues to explore how materiality, identity, and social critique intersect within her art and her community.