Jaleesa Johnston is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and arts administrator currently living and working in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work explores the Black female body as both subject and material through performance, video, photography, sculpture and collage. Jaleesa has been the recipient of the AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Centrum’s Emerging Artist Residency, Open Signal’s New Media Fellowship and an Artist Trust Fellowship Award. She has exhibited her work in cities along the west coast, including San Francisco, Portland and Seattle, and she occasionally facilitates workshops and classes in new media and performance art.  Jaleesa also organizes public programs as Programs Lead in the Learning and Community Partnerships Department at the Portland Art Museum.