Jarrett Key

We were in Venice for the opening weekend of the @labiennale . Over the last ten years @realjonkey and I have made the pilgrimage biannually to the city on water. So grateful for all the artists, curators and new friends we made while visiting. So much art, so much pasta, so much wine. You already know we had a great time. While walking the down the cobblestone streets and alleys, a photographer approached @realjonkey and I to take a picture of our looks. Once she did, she quickly mentioned, oh this is gonna be in British Vogue. lol Here’s the feature of that moment. So excited to have one of my original garments featured among the “striking yet effortless” looks from that weekend. @britishvogue Here are some of my favorite pieces from the show @melissamcgillstudio @derrickadamsny @chihulygg @nickcaveart

As many of you know I just got back from Mobile and New Orleans for my first site visit for my Southern Shores Hair Painting tour. These initial visits give me the opportunity to build relationships, pre plan for public dialogues and learn more about the local histories. I’m so grateful for those who have donated to my fundraiser. Your gifts support travel and accommodations, entry to museums, and pathways for me to meet local historians, artists and community members. I’m still accepting tax-deductible donations as I raise $100,000 to make this project a reality. Please donate if you can. Every dollar helps me. /southern-shores-tour If you wanna follow along, please check out my blog on website: /tour-journal Here’s an excerpt from the first post: Elizabet, the executive director and lead curator of @alabamacontemporary dropped me off at my new home for the next 5 days, the Quality Inn in Downtown’s Historic District. As I walked in, two hosts greeted me from the desk, “Welcome to Quality Inn, checkin’ in?” As I approached the desk, “Yes I am.” Maybe noticing my accent, one woman (Trice) said, “Oh where are you from?” NYC. I smiled. “New York City! What brings you all the way to Mobile?” I’m an artist and I am doing a project asking locals about the history, myths, and oral stories about the rivers and waters that define and surround Mobile. That was enough context for them – they both immediately offered stories about a grandfather who started a popular hang out spot next to a river outside of town, or a story about the completely destroyed and replaced community of Down The Bay on the river front in Mobile. I asked if I could come back and record them sharing these stories and they excitedly agreed.

HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH. HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH. HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH. I am so excited to share with you the most ambitious performance project I’ve ever undertaken. Beginning in Summer/Fall 2026, as the United States enters its 250th year, I will be touring Southern Shores to perform a series of Hair Paintings with and for community members in six cities: St. Augustine/Fort Mose, Charleston, Savannah, Columbus, Mobile, and New Orleans. Throughout the tour, I’ll be hosting public meals, conversations, and recording sessions to gather stories about the rivers, shores, and deltas that define each place. These oral histories—people’s memories, myths, and lived experiences—will inspire the soundscapes that carry each performance. Together we will build an archive to be treasured for generations. To bring this multi-city tour to life, I’m fundraising $100,000 for equipment, travel and accommodations, community engagement, documentation support, soundscape production, and public performances and programs. I NEED YOUR HELP TO MAKE THIS TOUR A REALITY. Please consider making a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATION to my fiscal sponsorship via Fractured Atlas. Every dollar makes this tour possible. Link is my bio!! /southern-tour-of-hair-painting-performance-for-community-members Photos by @inkydurant and @quenchgallery

2025 no. 1 So fun, thanks to everyone! It’s been a wild ride. May next year be better for us all. Love yall

I'm thrilled to have been featured in @essence alongside @laurenafineus and @chelseaodufu , highlighting our participation in @theshedny 's open call exhibition this past summer. It was an honor to be part of such an incredible show with talented artists. #nyc #art #brooklyn #fyp #opening #gallery

Sheet Cake Gallery's first presentation in "counter space" is the incomparable Brooklyn-based artist Jarrett Key. Jarrett Key’s figures are depicted in flight, soaring in the sky, both recontextualizing common narratives and inspiring the belief in the possibility of touching the clouds. Key’s cosmos contains both Raphael-inspired cherubs and figures from James Van Der Zee’s celebrated photographs of the Harlem Renaissance. These paintings, full of red and white stripes with accompanying blue, assert a restratification of American visual identity. Key’s works foreground Southern American folktales of flying Black people as a new way to imagine America from above, a place where a larger and longer history is being viewed and understood. This frame shifts away from the myth of American exceptionalism, colonization and military expansion. Key notes: “I am Black, I am queer, I am American; this is my country, my history, my legacy." Key's work will be on view in "counter space" at Sheet Cake thru 11.08.2025. They are represented by 1969 Gallery. Installation and detail shots by the dear Houston Cofield. #jarrettkey #sheetcakegallery #1969gallery

Join us this Saturday for the second installment of our Learning to Love | Theatrical One Acts. Link in bio. Come through!!!

(Im)Posibilidades: Performance Art for Video Feature: Jarrett Key & Kameron Neal @jar.key & @kamer_n CARGO! Jarrett Key & Kameron Neal (USA) two-channel video 2:29 m:s 2016   Filmed, performed, and edited by Jarrett Key and Kameron Neal, CARGO! references the burden of representation, transgenerational trauma, and the commodification of black bodies from the perspective of queer people of color.   Jarrett Key (b. 1990) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Jarrett received their MFA in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. Through form, image, and material, the objects they make integrate sculpture, painting, and performance. Excavating lost stories and oral histories that define their upbringing in rural Alabama, Key’s work seeks to criticize those historical conditions that are the seeds of contemporary issues in their life, while creating spaces that celebrate beauty, joy and survival.   Kameron Neal is a Brooklyn-based artist and designer working across video, installation, and performance. As a Public Artist in Residence with New York City’s Department of Records, he created Down the Barrel (of a Lens), an archival film installation interrogating NYPD surveillance. Kameron’s work has been presented at a variety of institutions, including Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Museum of the City of New York, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Williams College Museum of Art, and Sound Scene at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum. Kameron is a 2024-25 Movement Lab Fellow at the Rhode Island School of Design in the Film/Animation/Video Department. (Im)Posibilidades: Performance Art for Video Is curated by @proartesmexico @stephgarmar @p_g_hay @ar_forrester Visit OCA During Business Hours: Thursday through Saturday from 10am to 6pm Sunday from 12-4pm Slide 2 📸 @tristansadler

My next event at the Shed (@theshedny ) is this Saturday, Aug 9 at 4PM. Come witness a FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC screening of Hair Painting No. 10 (2016), followed by an artist talk with me and Kameron Neal (@kamer_n ), a long time collaborator and amazing artist who produced this video. This whole event should last about 1 hour. I hope to see you there. As many of you know I have just completed my three performances of Hair Painting No. 40 at the Shed. I’m so grateful to the nearly 500 people that came out to witness these paintings come to life. “Heavenly Mother, Guide Me” is more than just the call I sing to conjure the spirit of my grandmother, Ruth Mae Giles, into the space with us. These words remind me that I am never alone. Even when I don’t have the answers to the problems I face, I have the wisdom and voice of my ancestors constantly supporting me. #hairpainting #jarrettkey #art #film #nyc #brooklyn #family

Last chance to see a live performance of Hair Painting No. 40 @theshedny this Saturday at 230 pm. Hear me call “Heavenly Mother, Guide Me” and witness the response. Shout out to the amazing @kamer_n who is shooting and producing the videos documenting these performances. I’m so grateful to my grandmother, Ruth Mae Giles, who continues to inspire me. #art #performance #pefromanceart #nyc #brooklyn #risd #hair

What inspires you? “I am the most inspired by my grandmother, Ruth Mae Giles. She always said, ‘Your hair is your strength.’ Her words have inspired my performance, visual, and music practice.” — Jarrett Key, Brooklyn, New York @jar.key @artistsoncouches Photo credit: Marissa Alper for The Shed #jarrettkey #artistsoncouches #artisttalk #conversationswithartists #meettheartist #artistlife #purposeofart #artistssupportartists #artlife #artistsoninstagram #onthecouch #artistsupportpost #artcommunity #artistcommunity #artspotlight #todaysartreport

I’m so excited to be opening PORTALS @theshedny tonight!! After months of preparation, the day has finally come! I’ll be presenting Hair Painting No. 40 and a video called A-Z, an embodied alphabet. Catch my first public performance, this Sat June 28 at 630 pm at the Shed’s second floor gallery. Shout out to the amazing @kamer_n for shooting and producing the Hair Painting videos for this show. This photo is a still he captured. #nyc #theshed #art #opening #artist #brooklyn