Home Artist Programs Supported Artists Coulter Fussell

Coulter Fussell

Water Valley, Mississippi

Fabric-covered panels on a white gallery wall fit together to create an angular, irregular, six-sided shape. Some panels show scarlet-red flowers, others black and red berries, other plants or landscapes, and patterned cloth. A heart shape patterned with hearts and surrounded by a red ruffle is near the top left corner.

Poverty Point

2026

Images printed on sheer or translucent fabric are layered in a larger, vertically oriented rectangular composition, which is displayed on a white wall. Imagery includes brightly lit, splashing water amid plants and rocks, and striped or floral designs.

Night Blooming Cereus

2025

Layered images printed on cloth overlap to create three main panels, with the central panel being taller than the flanking strips. Hearts, one ruby red and one mossy green, rock onto their sides atop the side panels to either side. Imagery across the work includes waterfalls, churning water, red and turquoise stripes, and a floral pattern.

The Fall Line

2025

A blurry photo with a cloud of dirt kicking up from an almost unseen car is partially repeated four times across an almost square rectangle, which is edged unevenly with braided tubes of cloth. Smaller versions of the image create lighter or darker fields in the overall grid.

Trials of the Earth

2025

Artworks shown are selected from works submitted by the artist in their grant or residency application. All works are copyright of the artist or artist’s estate.

About Coulter Fussell

Coulter is a white artist with shoulder-length brown hair. She wears dark-framed glasses, a black shirt, black leggings, and white crew socks. She sits in the corner of a room with a mounted buck’s head hanging on an unfinished wall with layers of paint.
Photo by Jerry Siegel

Coulter Fussell is a visual artist who lives and works in Water Valley, Mississippi. Her practice spans quilting, upholstery, and mixed-media works that combine photography and sculpture. Coulter learned to quilt from her mother and to make dolls from her grandmother. The rest she learned from YouTube.

Coulter spent two decades as a career diner waitress while raising her children in rural north Mississippi. During that time, she won numerous art awards, opened and maintained two experimental, open-to-the-public art spaces, and exhibited in numerous institutions and galleries across the South and in New York City. Coulter is currently a full-time studio artist.

Program Participation

Joan Mitchell Fellowship, 2026

Website / Social Links

“ My work integrates textile materials donated by friends and strangers from my 3,400-person town with crowd-sourced video and photography. Using traditional quilting and tailoring techniques, I work across varying forms to create dream-like objects that blur perspectives of love, violence, and place in a rural world.”