Jacolby Satterwhite (b. 1986, South Carolina) is celebrated for a conceptual practice addressing crucial themes of ritual, fantasy, freedom and world-building through immersive installation, virtual reality and digital media. He uses a range of software to produce intricately detailed animations and live action film that make up an entirely unique cinematic universe, including a cast of characters featuring various 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, contemporary visual culture and music as a means of disrupting the conventions of Western art, while celebrating black queerness and freedom from oppression and discrimination. 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.

Satterwhite received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Arts, Baltimore and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. His work has been presented in numerous exhibitions and festivals internationally, including the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2025); Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2023); FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH (2022); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2021); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2018); and New Museum, New York (2017). His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. 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’s immersive 6-channel video commission, “A Metta Prayer” was on view in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Great Hall from October 2023 to January 2024.