About | Jessi Olarsch

JESSI OLARSCH

instagram.com/jessioart

Jessi Olarsch is a Brooklyn based artist whose work alchemizes queer history through painting. Her work seeks to build an understanding of how historical narratives are used in community and coalition building, exploring how personal, cultural, and political histories weave together over time. Working between paint, drawing, textile, and ceramic, she uses a purple palette to conjure queer history and steep the work in mysticism and intimacy.

She received her BFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021, and will receive her MFA from Pratt Institute in 2026. Her recent group and solo exhibitions include Reflections of Us at Warnes Contemporary Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2024), Cool Off at Visionary Projects, New York, NY (2024), Corpus Nexus, Dacia Gallery, New York, NY (2023), High Maintenance, Tchotchke Gallery, New York (2023), Inside a Memory, Visionary Art Collective (2023), Lightning Lectures, ICA Philadelphia (2021), and Watercolor: Luminous Light, National Association of Women Artists, New York (2019). She was the 2024 Artist in Residence at Im in The Village, in New York, and her work has been featured in publications such as Friend of the Artist and New American Paintings.