Jacob Olmedo
Jacob earned a MFA in Textiles at Parsons School of Design in New York City, after graduating with a BA in Fashion in 2017. Born in Wisconsin, Jacob currently lives and works in Brooklyn.
Olmedo self describes as a hybrid, an intersectional human who makes a minority body apparent through complicated weaving, knitting, and sewing. Every stitch, crochet loop, bead, or seed used by Jacob to create art, involves the viewer in a story of transformation. Labor-intensive and meticulously researched working techniques are at the heart of this artist’s work.
As a textile artist Jacob exercises a “subtle activism”, whether by creating hydroponic textiles capable of supporting plant life, or by returning to traditional crafts such as knitting and beading, which have been practiced by Olmedo since childhood. Inherited Mexican folk-art techniques like papier mâché, were also used in Second Skin, where a patched-up body was covered in an elaborate white crochet outfit, revealing the darker flesh beneath. Jacob’s limited palette directs our attention to the haptic interaction of see-through fibers and beads, exposing and revealing the underlying form.
Olmedo tests the boundaries of craft, fashion, and contemporary art, much like artists Nick Cave or Lisa Lou, and has created a distinctive visual language that examines identity issues in all of their complexity. Jacob’s prowess has already been recognized. Beyond earning the International Talking Textiles Award in 2020, Olmedo was featured in PBS Art 21 Rising Artists Series, and selected as artist in residence at the Museum of Art and Design in New York in 2021, where this artist continued exploring issues of heritage, social hierarchy, and activism.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 Call & Response: Craft as a Tool for Activism, San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA
Design by Time, Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC
Design by Time, San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA
2020 Hybrid, Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ
Design by Time, Gregg Museum of Art and Design, Raleigh, NC
2019 Design by Time, College of Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, OH
bft Capsule Collection Showcase, bioFASHIONtech Lab, Stamford, CT
Design by Time, Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN
Future of Rugs, OBEETEE Showroom, New York, NY
Parsons Festival, Parsons Gallery, New York, NY
Design by Time ; Curated by Ginger Duggan and Judy Fox, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, NY
2018 Living Product Partnership with the Healthy Material Lab, NYC Design Week Industry
City, New York, NY
Unleashing; Curated by Livia Alexander and Isin Onol, Columbia University, New York, NY
2017 Talking Textiles ; Curated by Li Edelkoort, Invisible Dog, Brooklyn, NY
AWARDS
Winner, International Talking Textiles Waxman Prize (2020)
Runner Up, Role Model Competition (2020)
Recipient, Pioneer Award (2020)
Recipient, CFDA Future of Fashion Graduate (2020)
Recipient, CFDA Future of Fashion Graduate (2017)
Winner, Future Textile Design of the Year (2017)
Winner, Role Model Competition (2017)
Finalist, International Talking Textiles Waxman Prize (2017)
FELLOWSHIPS
2021 - 2022 American Craft Council - Emerging Artist Cohort, Remote
Museum of Art and Design with 6 month extension , New York, NY
Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville , VA
2019-2020 Powerhouse Arts Textile Fellowship, Brooklyn, NY
OBEETEE Artist in Residence, Mirzapur, India
2018 TILL Designer in Residence, Stamford CT
2020 El arte Jacobo Olmedo que enamora L’Officiel Mexico (Raquel Azpiroz)
Rising Artist - Jacob Olmedo PBS
Role Models Award Winners Lead the Way in Healthy Materials Metropolis(Ethan Tucker)
Inside the Tactile Art of Textile Artist Jacob Olmedo AllArts (Brit Stigler)
Parsons’ Inaugural MFA Textile Graduates Debut CapstoneProjects Interior Design (Quinn Halman)
Textile Prize, New York Textile Month New York Textile Month
Hybrid Textile Talent (Jacob Olmedo)
A New Frontier in Regenerative Textile Design Mohawk Group(Royce Epstein)
2018 Is Sustainability Enough? CFDA (Jacob Olmedo)
We Spotlight Four Cool Sustainable Fashion Labels FEMALE (KengLand Shuen)
Experimental Textiles Design Jacob Olmedo Welcomes Public toTILL - Supported Design
Studio WWD (Rosemary Feitelberg)
2017 Jacob Olmedo is Radically rethinking What Clothing CanBe No Kill Magazine (Katya Moorman)
Fashion Future Graduate Showcase 2017: the young designers VogueItalia (Rachel Glicksberg)
Six Standout collections from Parsons 2017 Dezeen (DanHowarth)
