Tabitha Arnold makes labor-intensive art.

Born and based in Chattanooga, Arnold earned a painting degree from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where a retrospective show by Ann Hamilton inspired her to pick up weaving. When Arnold became involved an emergent cafe workers’ labor movement, she began to make tapestries about unions, using a rug-making tool as a makeshift embroidery needle. As a socialist and labor organizer, her work reflects coming of age during a new wave of unionization in the United States. Arnold’s textiles borrow imagery from Bible Belt spirituality, social-realist propaganda, and ancient art motifs to create new historical artifacts from a working-class perspective. Her pieces weave contemporary events with images of historical class struggle, with a special focus on lesser-known stories of labor organizing in the Appalachian South.

Arnold’s work has been reviewed by the New York Times, Interview Magazine, Hyperallergic, Jacobin, Burnaway, and BOMB, and she is the resident cover artist for Dissent Magazine. Arnold has held solo exhibitions at Field Projects (Chelsea, NY) the Worker's Art and Heritage Center (Hamilton, ON) Swarthmore College (Philadelphia, PA) and ICA Chattanooga (TN.) Her works are held in private and public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Dom Museum Wien, and she is the recipient of the 2025 Southern Prize for Visual Art.