artists
every piece has a story, and every story begins with an artist
TĀMAKI MAKAURAU, NEW ZEALAND · ECOFEMINIST TEXTILE & MIXED-MEDIA ARTIST
Leanne Gibbons
Leanne Gibbons is a contemporary ecofeminist artist working with discarded textiles, domestic objects and overlooked materials. Through stitch, assemblage and transformation, she explores female experience, ageing, environmental responsibility and the value society places on women and the things it leaves behind.
about
Leanne Gibbons has been making and creating throughout her life from her home in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
As her practice has evolved, her work has become less apologetic and more instinctive—guided by what pleases her soul while carrying a subversive message drawn from buried female fury. Beneath the tactile surfaces and familiar domestic materials sit questions about patriarchy, invisibility and the way older women and their accumulated knowledge can be overlooked or discarded.
Leanne consciously works with abandoned and repurposed materials, including textiles, plastic strapping, used tea bags and objects that already carry traces of another life. What might otherwise be destined for landfill becomes both her art supply and her metaphor: not everything placed on the discard pile has lost its value.
Stitch is central to her practice. Through it, Leanne pays homage to generations of women who used a needle to clothe their families and homes through necessity, care and love. She transforms worn and ordinary materials into works of reflection and reckoning—challenging social values that place appearance above essence and usefulness above humanity.
Leanne’s work has been exhibited throughout New Zealand and internationally, including in Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom. Her recognition includes a Merit Award at the 2025 Lake House Arts Members Exhibition, Third Prize at the 2024 Franklin Arts Society exhibition and First Prize in the 2017 Nonfunctional Textile Art Award. She was also selected as a finalist for the 2026 Changing Threads National Contemporary Textile Fibre Art Awards.
Her work asks us to look again—at what we consume, what we dismiss and whose stories we choose to value.
Because neither women, memories nor materials should become invisible simply because the world has decided they have served their purpose.
And if something discarded speaks to you, perhaps it was never without value at all.
Leanne Gibbons
Bound brushes and cascading threads give this hanging sculpture a quiet intensity.
In Bound, Leanne Gibbons brings together used paintbrushes, stained calico rags and thrifted thread. Tightly wrapped bundles gather above worn handles and metal ferrules, while long red threads fall loosely beneath them.
The brushes become substitute bodies, reflecting the mental and emotional labour of women in art and the longstanding distinction between art and craft. Through the physical act of binding, Leanne gives discarded materials a charged presence, questioning how usefulness shapes what—and whom—we value.
Created for the Changing Threads Contemporary Textile Exhibition, Nelson 2026, this work invites closer attention in an entranceway, study or living room. It can be suspended from the ceiling or displayed from the included screw-in, hand-turned wooden hanging peg.
Tactile · Expressive · Thought-provoking
Used paintbrushes, calico and thrifted thread · 30 cm wide × 105 cm high × 15 cm deep
Hanging sculpture · Wooden wall-hanging peg included