Karen Hampton (born 1958) is an American textile artist, working as a weaver, surface designer, and fabric dyer.
Hampton continued her education as an artist while apprenticing to master weaver and dyer Ida Grae, and later completed her MFA degree at University of California, Davis (U.C.
[4] Hampton works in a combination of textile media, most prominently weaving, dyeing, embroidery, and surface design, as well as printing using archival images.
"[4] Since learning of Flora, an ancestor of Hampton's who had been freed from slavery in the late 1700s and later became a landowner, she has incorporated family history into her art, in addition to her own life experiences including voluntary busing as a child.
[5] In addition to her artwork, Hampton produces scholarly research on the history of textile production by African American women during slavery.