Abby Cipar is a multidisciplinary artist, arts advocate, and aspiring curator with roots in Akron, OH. Cipar's work considers laborious acts of making, such as sewing, binding, pinning, tucking, stretching, and squeezing, as sites for communicating intense, highly-personal experiences of gender dysphoria. Material choices within their work speak to reciprocity and found family, while simultaneously opening dialogues surrounding the heaviness of nostalgia and how we dictate what parts of history are worth keeping. 

They are a 2021 graduate of The University of Akron, holding a BFA in Painting & Drawing. During their studies, they received notable honors, such as the 2019 Folk Charitable Foundation Venice Biennale Travel Award and the President's Holiday Art Award. In the spring of 2022, Cipar wrapped up their second solo exhibition, Sweet to One Another at Praxis Fiber Workshop (Cleveland, OH). Their work has been included in the 2022 CAN Triennial at The Sculpture Center (Cleveland, OH), Finding a Memory at Piano Craft Gallery (Boston, MA), CAA Scholarship Exhibition at Detroit Artists’ Market (Detroit, MI), and The Infinite Mix at YARDS Projects (Cleveland, OH). 

Cipar currently serves as a Community Member on the Artist Resource Committee for Akron's Summit Artspace and curated the group exhibition, Collective Remedies, at KINK Contemporary (Cleveland, OH) in June of 2023. Slated for graduation in 2024, Cipar is pursuing an MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art and was recently a recipient of the Stewart Thomson Fellowship for Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.