Jacolby Satterwhite is celebrated for a conceptual practice addressing crucial themes of labor, consumption, carnality and fantasy through immersive installation, virtual reality, and digital media. He uses a range of software to produce intricately detailed animations and live action film of real and imagined worlds populated by the avatars of artists and friends. These animations serve as the stage on which the artist synthesizes the multiple disciplines that encompass his practice, namely illustration, performance, painting, sculpture, photography and writing. Satterwhite draws from an extensive set of real and fantastical references, guided by mythology, modernism, contemporary visual culture and video game language to challenge conventions of Western art through a personal and political lens. An equally significant influence is that of his late mother, Patricia Satterwhite, whose ethereal vocals and diagrams for visionary household products serve as the source material within a decidedly complex structure of memory and mythology.
Jacolby Satterwhite was born in 1986 in Columbia, South Carolina. He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Arts, Baltimore and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Satterwhite’s work has been presented in numerous exhibitions and festivals internationally, including most recently at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2023); FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH (2022); Miller Institute for Contemporary Art, PA (2021); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2021); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2021); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (2021); Fabric Workshop & Museum, Philadelphia (2019); Pioneer Works, New York (2019); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019); Minneapolis Institute of Art (2019); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2018); New Museum, New York (2017); Public Art Fund, New York (2017); San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco (2017); and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2017). He was awarded the United States Artist Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellowship in 2016. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. Satterwhite has collaborated with several musicians, including Solange Knowles in 2019 on her visual album, “When I Get Home,” The 1975 in 2020 on the music video for “Having No Head,” and Perfume Genus in 2022 on his album, “Ugly Season.” He was awarded a public art commission in collaboration with the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Public Art Fund to inaugurate Lincoln Center’s new David Geffen Hall, which debuted in October 2022 in New York and is currently on view. Satterwhite was awarded The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York’s Great Hall Commission, opening October 2 of this year.
