In their practice, JaLeel creates work that does not prioritize the written account of what we know Blackness to be as a definitive way of learning about who is around them. JaLeel uses failure and unfiltered experimentation within their making process as an image maker and performance artist in the hope of guiding the viewer to look next to them and see what knowledge their new neighbor has stored within themselves.

     JaLeel received their BFA in Photography & Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Visual Arts from Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of Art.