Jess Saldaña (they/them) is a transdisciplinary surrealist artist and therapist in training who is interested in the protean nature of identity, perception, and environment. Time based mediums, filmic and ephemeral, are utilized strategically to render a conceptual liminality that gives nuance to shared aspects of place. They seek to provide a frame of reference that peers into spaces in between, those that are often overlooked and even unseen. Their work can take many forms and engages a range of concepts located in general observation and curiosity in their surroundings.

They have worked with the Barnard College Library, the Educational Video Center, NYU CLACS, and others to facilitate visual media literacy, administration, and access to equipment for education. They are currently seeking their clinical licensure in art therapy from Pratt Institute, focusing on intersubjective play in trans and mixed race children and adults.

They are curious about integrating creative arts therapy into psychodynamic theory and practice. In 2025 they received an honorable mention for the Susan C. Warshaw essay award for the paper, "That boy, Dorothy": Countertransference, Gendered Scripts, and Queer Moments in the Intersubjective Playground. In 2024 they were granted the APsA Candidate in the Community Mentoring award, and their essay, The Analytic Goodbye: Memory, Primary Narcissism, and Dreams was declared the winner of the APA Division 39, Section 1 candidate essay contest.

Writing, photographs, paintings, and drawings have been featured in the following; Stonewall’s Legacy: Poetry Anthology (2019), Entropy Magazine (2019), Hyperallergic (2020), LAMBDA Lit (2023), Sinister Wisdom (2023), The Brooklyn Rail (2024, 2025) among others. They have presented scholarly work as a part of Black Portraiture[s] 2019 alongside Angela Davis, poetry for The New Museum’s education programming, and have composed music for the 2021 promotional trailer for Visual AIDS’ Day With(out) Art: ENDURING CARE. In 2021 they were a NYFA City Artist Corps Grant recipient and were awarded Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots grant.

Image descriptions for this website are available upon request. Please inquire via email.

jesscame2b@proton.me