Jacolby Satterwhite has long considered the relationship between drawing, language, image and its record. The neon works, which entered his practice in 2012, were originally rooted in the personal archive left behind by his late-mother and have since taken shape as nuanced, deeply referential image making. “Doubt” and “Black Luncheon” appropriate Caravaggio and Manet, respectively, but it is Satterwhite’s acute understanding of the banality of these art historical images rendered under the banality of neon as a medium that activates these works. In “Black Luncheon,” the inclusion of the 3D-printed objects completes Satterwhite’s vision to push Modernist motifs further into his contemporary field of vision and lexicon.

In speaking of an earlier video, Thomas Lax makes the penetrating observation that “Motherhood’s connective tissue nevertheless persists from the antebellum Americas to Satterwhite’s technique. The tray and lipstick in [Reifying Desire 5] were first drawn by the artist’s late mother, Patricia Satterwhite. Patricia, who was schizophrenic and confined to her South Carolina home for two decades, made the drawings as diagrams for commercial objects to be sold on the Home Shopping Network. Her domestically oriented, surreal objects were never sold in that context, but their presence here, transformed as commercial artworks in collaboration with her son, reformulates the germ of her entrepreneurial desire. Retraced into yet another universe, they are prompts for an object theater without a narrative arc or dramatic conclusion. Instead, in this reification, which bridges an abstract idea with physical form, the Satterwhites invite the viewer into a blueprint for an unrealized world that is already everywhere around us.” [1]

In contrast, the text-based neon signs, which take on the lyrics from his mother as songwriter, show her prophetic melodies lit up as a sort of graphic wayfinding.

1. Lax, Thomas J. 2020. "Thomas J. Lax on Jacolby Satterwhite." In Young Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists, edited by Antwaun Sargent, 172. New York: D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers Inc.

Jacolby Satterwhite is celebrated for a conceptual practice addressing crucial themes of labor, consumption, carnality and fantasy through immersive installation, virtual reality and digital media. He uses a range of software to produce intricately detailed animations and live action film of real and imagined worlds populated by the avatars of 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 references, guided by queer theory, modernism and video game language to challenge conventions of Western art through a personal and political lens. An equally significant influence is that of his late mother, Patricia Satterwhite, whose ethereal vocals and diagrams for visionary household products and ethereal vocals serve as the source material within a decidedly complex structure of memory and mythology.

Jacolby Satterwhite was born in 1986 in Columbia, South Carolina. He received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Arts, Baltimore and his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Satterwhite’s work has been presented in numerous exhibitions both in the United States and in Europe, including most recently at Fabric Workshop & Museum, Philadelphia (2019); Pioneer Works, New York (2019); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2019); the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019); the Minneapolis Institute of Art (2019); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018); Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2018); New Museum, New York (2017); Public Art Fund, New York (2017); San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco (2017); and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2017). He was awarded the United States Artist Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellowship in 2016. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. In 2019, Satterwhite collaborated with Solange Knowles on her visual album, “When I Get Home." 

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