John Paul Morabito

John Paul Morabito is an Assistant Professor of Art and Head of the Textiles Program at Kent State University. Their work engages queerness, ethnicity, and the sacred through the medium of tapestry reimagined in the digital age. They approach weaving as an ontological practice through which blasphemy, devotion, the incarnational spirit of Catholicism, the decadence of drag, and the impossibility of queer grace are bound as resonant sensibilities within their opulent tapestries. Morabito has exhibited at international venues including Patricia Sweetow Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); the Zhejiang Art Museum (Hangzhou City, China); the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem, NC); CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions (San Francisco, CA); Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Projects (Long Island City, NY); Document (Chicago, IL); the Des Moines Art Center (Des Moines, IA); the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); the Center for Craft (Asheville, NC); and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI). Their work is represented in public and private collections including the Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec (Montréal, Canada) and the Textile Resource Center at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL). Their writing has been published in Art China, The Textile Reader 2 (China Academy of Art), The Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, Textile: Cloth and Culture, and Surface Design Journal. Morabito is a 2024 United States Artists Fellow. They hold a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to their appointment within the School of Art they served on the faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 2013-2022. John Paul Morabito is represented by Patricia Sweetow Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.