Jeffrey Gibson’s diverse practice synthesizes the cultural and artistic traditions of his Cherokee and Choctaw heritage with the visual languages of modernism and themes from contemporary popular and queer culture. His work is a vibrant call for queer and Indigenous empowerment, envisioning a celebration of strength and joy within these communities. One of Gibson’s tapestry works, POWERFUL BECAUSE THEY'RE DIFFERENT (2019) continues the artist’s project of incorporating craft into contemporary art. The bright colors of the wall work evoke the psychedelic effects of Navajo “eye-dazzler” weavings, which developed in the 1890s with the arrival in various trading posts of brightly colored yarns from mills in industrial towns in the north eastern United States, particularly Germantown, PA. Speaking to narratives of resistance, resilience, and endurance, POWERFUL BECAUSE THEY'RE DIFFERENT coopts the language of geometric abstraction to reflect on, in the curator Marshall N. Price’s words, “both the problematic legacies of … [Gibson’s] own heritage and the problematic legacy of modernism.”