Meet Jai Knight | Interdisciplinary Artist, Professional Hand-Poke Tattoo Artist & Teacher.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jai Knight and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jai, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I am from Upstate Western New York. I grew up in a low-income split family in a rural farm community, Drug Addiction, mental health crises, opioids, alcoholism, and boredom plagued my first known community. I come from a split family and experienced domestic violence within the first ten years of my life. Having access to “nature”, art supplies, art in public schools, and dietary autonomy defined my individuation, coping, and healing strategy.

This impacted my current value systems and work. Threads of my work weave together mental health, climate crises, land-based autonomy, and social interruptions. I value community, health, social justice, healing, accountability, and action.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My work is all about process and transformation. This is relating to the material at hand, as well as a symbol of the process of transformation we are in as individuals, with earth, and with the collective.

Being an artist is no easy task that I chose to do for fun. This is a life purpose I’ve always known I needed to follow. My art practice is my life story, experiencing a need to create alternative realities as a way of coping with trauma. The challenges come with working to sustain myself in a culture that generally undervalues and exploits creators, where access to funding is not always available. The ease comes with my natural need to continue creating art that is coming from a genuine place. By teaching children and adults how to create artwork as a form of healing and soothing, I find that I am able to overcome my struggle with needing to capitalize from my work.

After studying Fine Arts in College, I was sure my work needed to be deeper than a commentary within the art world. I view art as a place of freedom to shift materials, spaces, paradigms and realities. The artwork I create now is everything I have experienced and continue to experience on this earth. Witnessing Glaciers melting in the fjords of Patagonia, systemic corruption within ecotourism, destruction of indigenous lands, massive wildfires burning just on the other side of the mountains in the places I call home in the SW have all deeply informed my work. I have gone through many phases as an artist and with each creation progressing as I, myself shift and change with this reality.

My current focus is on moving through grief with support of flowers, community, ritual, and finding pleasure in the material. My art practice is now integrating more socially engaged work, where I create a collaborative space to learn, reflect, and grow and transform.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If a best friend were visiting, I would take them to my home, my lair. I am a home person, and I love finding pleasure in the mundane, and beauty in the places I cultivate. Near my home I have access to Joshua Tree National Park, where we would find a cavern to meditate in together. Next stop…Some sweet event happening at the Joshua Tree Firehouse, for an evening of strange sonic experience, performative visuals, and head home for some stargazing. We’d pick up some fresh veggies from the Joshua Tree Farmers Market, and head over to Sky Village to see what junk is calling us. To venture beyond my close proximity, I’d take a friend to Pioneertown Mountain preserve, or to waterways hidden in the arid lands. I’d take my bff to The Palms in Wonder Valley where they would witness and/or participate in my open mic performance where somehow I would weird out even the freakiest desert rats. Exploring side roads my friend would see the glory of this desert juxtaposed with the reality of trash that winds up here. Joshua Trees and litter covered in glitter.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I am grateful for all of the support I have received over the years. The support comes from all over the place! From the community of Buffalo, NY including the Burchfield Penney Art Center, UTE A.I.R. for hosting my most recent 2022 residency, Scott Sutton for teaching me the ways of pigment crafting, Dhamma Dena Meditation Center and Sangha for helping to deepen my understanding of mindfulness, The community of the High Desert in both CA and NM, the community at Arcosanti for continuing to support my work and inspire me, I am grateful for elders who share there wisdom within the realm of art, environment, and life with me, to the healers who have ushered me through challenges. Most currently I am feeling so grateful to be supported by my collaborators within the House Rat Project including Julia Solano and Neoglyphic Media, and the upcoming residency space at Lookout Arts Quarry.

Email: liminalartist@gmail.com

Instagram: @strangebrainz @houseratoracle

Image Credits
House Rat Oracle Deck (for the images on handmade paper) Skin Ritual Art, hand poke tattoo by Jai Mineral & Plant Pigment Painting Studio at UTE A.I.R. in New Mexico (for studio image and painting)