Jacob Olmedo

Jacob Olmedo (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist who works with textiles and sculpture forms that blend certain craftwork, both traditional and contemporary, exploring deeply personal statements about being human. Often drawn to hybridizing materials and techniques that transform and critique the status quo, they ask for the meaning of the work to be about the dismantling of physical and societal structures to reveal the tenderness of body, skin, land, and soul. Their practice is a journey engaged in following a pulse entangled in emotional tense depictions of self and humanness.

Olmedo earned their MFA and BFA from the Parsons School of Design as well as studied textile making in Mirzapur, India, and Paris, France. Olmedo has exhibited in venues such as Mana Contemporary, Columbia University, NYC Design Week, San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, and the Pratt Manhattan Gallery. They won the prestigious International Talking Textiles Waxman Prize in 2020, became the first CFDA Liz Claiborne Graduate Scholar in 2018, and have been recognized by press such as Vogue Italia, PBS, and L’Officiel Mexico.