Jessica Gaynelle Moss is an artist who supports other artists through her curatorial work, consultancy and custodianship.
As an artist and practitioner her creative vision transcends traditional art boundaries. Her work -- merging fine art with real estate development, philanthropy and institution-building -- has been defined as social practice, creative place-making and public art. Embracing multiple mediums and disciplines, her work centers interaction and relationships, asserting autonomy with authority, often through visual and textual declarations or convenings in public spaces.
In addition to her role as the founding director of The Roll Up CLT, a neighborhood embedded artist residency program she launched in 2016, Jessica has collaborated with notable artists, contributing to social practice, public art and community engaged projects that center the interaction as art, like Mel Chin's Fundred Dollar Bill Project, Theaster Gates' Black Artists Retreat and the Stony Island Arts Bank, and Alisha B Wormsley's Sibyls Shrine, an artist residency and network of 100+ Black artists who have m/othering practices, where she currently serves as the collective's managing director and curator.
As the founder of her own art consulting, curatorial and advisement firm, Jessica excels at forging relationships, building bridges between different parties, and creating diplomatic ties where none existed before. Her ability to navigate these challenges with finesse and empathy makes her an outlier in the field. Jessica has cultivated an impressive client portfolio including institutions like The NAACP, The National Museum of African American History and Culture, The Joan Mitchell Center, Heinz Endowments and The National Trust for Historic Preservation. Her work and projects have been featured in Architectural Digest, The Root, Black Art in America, and Bloomberg News.
Jessica has been acclaimed as a 'Leading Voice in Public Art,' honored as a 'Woman of Achievement,' and recognized among 'Women to Watch.' She has been awarded the prestigious 40 Under 40 award in multiple US cities, recognizing her dedication towards advancing equity within the arts beyond borders. Her impactful works and contributions have been acknowledged with grant awards and honors from distinguished funders including The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Black Art Futures Fund and The Ford Foundation.
Jessica received a bachelors in Fine Art from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009; a masters in Arts Administration, Policy and Management from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015; and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 2018.
ABOUT JESSICA
Photo courtesy of Jade Lilly, 2023
TESTIMONIALS
“As someone at the beginning of my career, having someone think that my ideas are important, my projects are important. And really, Jessica was helping me see levels of importance of the work I didn’t even see. She was always emphasizing to me the importance of community, Black history, Black art history, Black collecting history and the need to really preserve our story. And through having those conversations I realized that this was a project that needs to be done and this is a project that I can do.”
- Marques Redd PhD, Seed Money Fund grantee
"Once we secured the funds, we immediately identified Jessica Moss as a really excellent potential project director, designer of the program and implementer. We have worked with Jessica as an arts administrator on a number of projects and are also very aware of the public realm projects she's worked on over the years too."
- Sallyann Kluz, Executive Director Shiftworks Community + Public Art
"Jessica brings a wealth of knowledge and support to our Board of Directors at Brew House Arts. As a part of our executive team, Jessica’s deep understanding of the field helps to support my organizational leadership. She is someone I can trust for real guidance on how to balance a radical institutional vision with practicality in practice, and I can always depend on her to be a strong advocate for the care and consideration of artists at every step of our work.
- Natalie Sweet, Executive Director Brew House Arts
"I mentioned to Jessica a while back that I was interested in continuing my work in social justice, but I needed the freedom and flexibility to execute my ideas. She helped me craft my proposal to the Gantt Center as a social justice creative in residence as well as helped me pull my vision together for my grant proposal to Unite Charlotte. We won the funding. Jessica is a visionary, so every discussion you have with her is pretty much going to generate thousands of ideas. She has mastered the art of balancing quirky and business savvy. She is someone who you'll crack up laughing with for 20 minutes over nothing and then she can flawlessly transition straight to the business of orchestrating boardroom meetings."
- Janelle Dunlap, inaugural Social Justice Artist-in-Residence at the Harvey B. Gantt Center