Kelly Thompson
Since 2024 - Lives and works Whangārei, Northland, Aotearoa New Zealand 

Lived and worked in Montreal, Canada from 2009-2024
Retired in June 2024 as Professor Emeritus from Studio Arts, Concordia University


Californian born but New Zealand raised, Kelly Thompson was a Professor in Fibers and Material Practices, and Graduate Program Director, Department of Studio Arts at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She was an active member of the Textiles and Materiality Research Cluster of Milieux Institute for Art, Culture and Technology at Concordia University. Previously she was Head of the BA Textile program, at Goldsmiths, University of London for four years, and before that taught at the Otago School of Art, New Zealand. Thompson has a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts 1985, and a MA (Visual Arts)1994, from the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University. Thompson has exhibited work internationally in exhibitions, festivals and biennials. Her work explores the intersections of age-old and 21st technologies and producing new cloth artwork embedded with narratives of location and identity, travel, language, and translation.