Tali Halpern is a queer fiber artist who approaches slow craft as a sacred form of world building. They create rich and layered works about themes that are often deemed taboo or contradictory: sexuality and spirituality, desirability and shame, club culture and addiction recovery. Their dazzling, multi-process textiles collage together found objects and text, interpreting these as divine messages, hoping to reach others working through deep, internal struggles around self worth, mental illness, and substance use. Their aesthetics are informed by lived experience in queer and punk counterculture and their process is laborious and meditative, grounding what might appear as controlled chaos in utterly meticulous care.

Halpern received a BFA in Studio Arts from Hampshire College in 2016 and a Visionary Award for their MFA from the School of the Art Institute in 2022. They first learned weaving while assisting fourth-generation Navajo weaver Melissa Cody and now work as the Studio Technician at LMRM on TC2 digital Jacquard looms. They have exhibited at de boer in Los Angeles, Bravinlee in New York City, Chicago Art Department, Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago, Twelveten Gallery at NADA Miami, and Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.