Kaitlyn B. Jones
Artist | Archival Researcher | Curator
Kaitlyn B. Jones is an interdisciplinary artist, archival researcher, and independent curator committed to using art as a conduit for healing and a seedbed for activism.
Through a multimedia semiotic lens, she explores themes of legacy, lineage and autonomy as it relates to the conscious and unconscious value placed on the histories and multifaceted cultures of the Black Diaspora. She is an avid writer who enjoys research and continuing scholarship on the intersections of Black-American history and contemporary art.
In the summer of 2022, Jones was an artist in residence at Roger’s Art Loft in Las Vegas, Nevada where she created Black Woman, Unbothered, a solo exhibition that explored the Black ancestral desire for rest and liberation. In 2021, Jones’ interactive installations, This is not for you and One day, you will die were selected by guest curator Aisha Tida Abbassi for A Time for Action, an interdisciplinary micro-festival hosted by the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, Texas.
During the 2021-2022 programming season, she was the lead curator for Convergence Research, an interdisciplinary performance series hosted in part by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston.
Kaitlyn B. Jones holds a Master of Arts in Arts Leadership with an emphasis on Curatorial Studies and a Certificate in Museum and Gallery Management from the University of Houston. She also holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2023, she founded Conduit Arts, a curatorial platform for research-based, community-oriented arts & culture projects that center Black diasporic histories, cultures, and perspectives.
Her most recent curatorial project, Black Being, ignites complex conversations about Black exceptionalism as a dangerous ethos that disregards the inherent value of Black life. Black Being features fifteen Black artists whose work depicts Blackness as a soft, multidimensional essence without direct references to systemic trauma and resilience as a descriptive Black character trait.
Artist/Curatorial Statement
I believe that art is a conduit for healing and a seedbed for activism. I use creative exploration as a vessel for joy, meditation, and grief. Lineage, ancestral knowledge, and intergenerational storytelling serve as inspiration for my artistic and curatorial practice.
I strive to create from a place of abundance. Rest, joy, nature, and solidarity are essential to my creative and curatorial processes.
I question artistic spaces that seek diversity and inclusivity but disregard the history, experiences, voices, and opinions of historically marginalized communities.
I resist thoughts and emotions that can only be rationalized by capitalist and white supremacist constructs.