Kaylani Brown (b. 1999) is a Black Nuyorican mixed-media artist, storyteller, and night-sky enthusiast based in Pittsburgh, PA. In 2021, they graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in General Fine Arts. They participated in Bunker Projects’ artist residency in 2025. They are a current resident of Brew House Arts’ Distillery Residency. Informed by the images of their Catholic upbringing, Kaylani’s work is littered with stars and mysticism. Their work explores what connective possibilities can transform people into heavenly bodies, and thus become more human. Emulating the warmth of a journal entry and the playful drawings they made as a child, Kaylani reimagines cosmologies on paper and in panels.

“My work is a pause on the intimate; to study droplets, observe the suppleness of skin, and feel the edge of something desired. I primarily create imagined portraits of characters that serve as avatars of my lived experiences. I use an airbrush to create a dream-like surface, then paint or draw on top to carve the figure out. My palette of choice is rainbow. Rainbows are catharsis—a rush of delight after an intense experience. I am attracted to the color, tenderness, and magic created from these water refractions. I also utilize wetness as a motif for how sexuality, labor, and sensitivity complicate each other harmoniously. My characters are on the precipice of something—dripping with anticipation or sweating from hard work that’s already taken place. In my abstract pieces, I also make portraits of the essence of emotion. I imagine a petri dish that can compress a feeling down so small that you can see all of its colors and shapes. My work resides in the moments between uncertainty and decision, numbing and feeling, sensibility and sensuality; all wet from what’s to come.”