Bean Gilsdorf
Bean Gilsdorf is a fourth-generation seamstress currently working at the nexus of sculptural textiles and photography. Her practice reanimates cultural and political figures found in mass-market history books, turning flat images into collaged three-dimensional forms that are further détourned through strategies of draping, stuffing, and compressing.
Her projects have been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, and the American Textile History Museum, as well as exhibition spaces in England, Italy, China, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and South Africa. Gilsdorf’s work is in the permanent collections of the Portland Art Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, Kala Art Institute, and the International Quilt Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including an Oregon Arts Commission Artist Fellowship (2024), a Ford Family Foundation Fellowship Residency at Ucross Foundation (2023), two Fulbright Fellowships to Poland, among others. She has also been an artist in residence at 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA and Banff Centre, among others. Gilsdorf holds a BA from Simon’s Rock at Bard College and an MFA from California College of the Arts. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon.
AMcE Exhibitions
As We Imagined, February 2025
The Gift, 2024
Mixed textiles on hand-dyed and -printed cotton, mounted to museum board
20” x 15”
Done Properly, 2024
Mixed textiles on hand-dyed and -printed cotton, mounted to museum board
19 ½” x 14 ¾”
Behind the Shield, 2024
Mixed textiles on hand-dyed and -printed cotton, mounted to museum board
22” x 18”
And Bear It, 2024
Mixed textiles on hand-dyed and -printed cotton, mounted to museum board
21” x 16 ½”
When Morning Comes, 2022
Archival pigment print
Ed. 3 + 1AP
34” × 23” framed
Heart that Burns, 2022
Archival pigment print
Ed. 3 + 1AP
19″ × 13″ framed
Mercy is Greater, 2022
Archival pigment print
Ed. 3 + 1AP
36” × 24 ½” framed
Walk Alone, 2022
Archival pigment print
Ed. 3 + 1AP
24” × 16 ¾” inches framed
Tupelo Boy, 2020
Polyester, velvet, rayon
31” x 12” x 8”
Knave, 2019
Wool, polyester, cotton, laminated metallic spandex, chenille brocade, lace trim
34″ x 21” x 9”
Tropicalia, 2019
Wool, cotton, polyester, vinyl
36” x 24” x 8”
Thin King, 2019
Wool, polyester, cotton, brocade, vinyl
40” x 20” x 8”
Graceland, 2020
Polyester, wool, satin, lace
39” x 15” x 8”
Blue Eye, 2019
Polyester, wool, brocade, taffeta, cotton, metallic mesh, fringe
29” x 14” x 10”