Bloom (California Coasts), cut paper from found book, 2017, 18˝x18˝x0˝
Sunset (for Steve Dain), ink and paper, 2021, 18˝x18˝x0˝
Jessalyn Aaland
Jessalyn Aaland is a Bay Area interdisciplinary artist working across social practice, painting, print, and sculpture. Her work often touches upon complex social issues, but with a sense of humor, hope, and joy. Much of her work explores how systems (such as the K-12 education system) function as sites for both conformity and resistance, and convey the possibility that a more utopian society is not unreachable.
Her work has been supported with funding from Southern Exposure, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and the San Francisco Arts Commission. She has been an artist-in-residence at Facebook (Menlo Park), Real Time & Space (Oakland, CA), North Mountain (West Virginia), and Sim (Reykjavik, Iceland), and was a 2018-2019 Political Power fellow at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.