Exhbition | Coulter Fussell: The Proving Ground

Name: Exhbition | Coulter Fussell: The Proving Ground
Start: 2026-03-20T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-06-14T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Exhbition | Coulter Fussell: The Proving Ground

March 20 — June 14, 2026

Overview

Coulter Fussell: The Proving Ground is the first museum survey of quilt-works by Mississippi-based artist Coulter Fussell (b. 1977). Presenting over forty sewn collages created over the past five years, the exhibition traces Fussell's practice from traditional quilting formats to increasingly sculptural, mixed-media works incorporating upholstery techniques, photography, and digital projection.

Working from a storefront studio in rural Water Valley, Mississippi, Fussell gathers discarded textiles and objects from friends, family, neighbors, and strangers. That miscellany becomes the raw material for works ranging from altered quilts to wall-hung soft sculptures featuring photographs and video stills printed on translucent chiffon. Using the collage techniques of quilting, Fussell builds layered landscapes of the American South — drawing on specific places like Mississippi's Wildcat Brake, the salt marshes of the South Carolina Lowcountry, Louisiana's Poverty Point, and the Chattahoochee River near her hometown of Columbus, Georgia.

Across five bodies of work produced since 2020, the exhibition explores the perceptual, geographic, and cultural grounds that shape how we understand place, memory, and belief.

Coulter Fussell: The Proving Ground is a presentation in the Myra Green and Lynn Green Root Memorial Exhibition Series and is supported in part by Visit Jackson.