Bio

jessica susan oler (b. 1986) is a Black American Conceptual Artist. oler was born and raised in Davis, California. She attended Sacramento City College where she earned three Associates Degrees in Social Science, Liberal Arts, and Sociology. In addition to this she earned her Bachelor's Degree in Sociology from San Francisco State University in 2014 and her Master's Degree in Fine Arts from California College of the Arts in 2019. As of late oler has earned admittance into the Doctoral Gender Studies Program at Queen's University under the supervision of Dr. Katherine Mckittrick come Fall 2023. oler's work has been shown at California College of the Arts; Lewis-Clark State College; Chautauqua and Brooklyn, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Miami, Florida; Lawrenceville and Atlanta, Georgia; Alameda, Oakland, and San Francisco, California; and Alexandria, New South Wales, Australia. jessica oler produces artworks in two-dimensional conceptual abstract format,video, photographic series, installation, and time-based work. As her practice shape shifts and expands she continues to lean into both concrete figurative forms and conceptual abstraction. As oler continues to move forward with her personhood, politic, and artistic practice the vastness of multidisciplinary continues to be a guiding force. Her perspective of the world shifted when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 2012. Life became aggressively bombastic, urgent, confusing, pressing, and generative in a new and rigorous way. As Gustav Klimpt once said, “art is a line around your thoughts.” That through-line runs through her work with consistent abandon. oler continues to work through the concept “unprotected Black female flesh” which, at this moment, is anchored in her experience as a Black queer woman living with said illness.

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