Jay Katelansky

Jay Katelansky is an interdisciplinary artist who is currently living and working in Washington, DC. Katelansky earned their BFA from Moore College of Art and Design and an MA and MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Katelansky’s work questions how Black bodies, including their own, navigate space in the United States. The questions they have been processing are: What does safe mean? How does safe feel? Is safety a place? Is it a person? Is safety an unattainable condition? Who gets to be safe? Are you safe? Katelansky’s current focus and interest has been on making work that explores both the historical impact of disco on queer and Black communities through Gloria Gaynor’s anthem “I Will Survive” and the contemporary need for respite from the current state of violence and disparity for these same communities.Text and literature forms the foundation of their practice, even when text isn’t present or visible in the final product. Most of their art starts with their personal practice of writing or reading whether it be poetry, fiction, memoir, song lyrics, or a fast scribble in their notes. Katelansky is deeply influenced by craft, sounds, and poetry, as well as everyday objects like billboards whose purpose is to convey a simple message and how these objects interact with and alter the spaces they inhabit.

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