Ian Gerson is a queer and trans interdisciplinary artist and educator born and based in Houston, TX. Ian has shared work across art spaces in the US and in Mexico City, including Socrates Sculpture Park, the Bronx Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and BOX13 ArtSpace in Houston, and has participated at several residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, MacDowell, the Galveston Artist Residency, and the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.

Their work has been supported by a 2022 Houston Artadia Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant, and a Public Art Grant from the City of Galveston, TX. Ian holds an MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin.

While in residency and using discarded materials found in local waterways, he wove a series of wearable sculptures and then facilitate a queer and trans-led fashion show on the banks of the Mississippi River. Using makeshift looms he hand wove ropes found in and around the Mississippi River, along with his own personal clothing scraps and those gathered from friends in the community, mylar emergency blankets, dried plants, EL wire lights, and other found materials. His project ‘Transing the Future’ harnesses the emancipatory potential of queer nightlife to envision climate survival through a trans lens.

Headshot by Jean Shon