Katherina Jesek, also known as “Kate the Cursed” in online spaces, is 26 years old, yet  already the self-taught artist’s pieces have appeared at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City and many other prestigious venues. Her sales record has gone as high as $20,000.

Nevertheless, Jesek is very pleased to have her work now on view at the Westchester Community College (WCC) gallery in central Peekskill, a few miles south of her Cold Spring hometown, where she recently got her own place. After her high profile exposure, “It’s bringing everything back home for me. It was hard to describe what I was doing,” she says, talking about explaining her electronic art, and she is gratified to show, not just tell,  her friends and family.

Jesek’s show, “Venus in Vectors,” is a collaboration between the KinoSaito Museum in Verplanck and  SUNY WCC’s Center for Digital Arts, located at 27 North Division Street in Peekskill. The exhibit’s curator, KinoSaito’s Megan Meadowlark, is delighted about the local venue. [Ed. Note: Meadowlark has been named Associate Director of Visual Arts Programing at ArtsWestchester, where she will be the primary curator for their gallery, and also will be curating an upcoming exhibition at KinoSaito as an independent curator.]

KinoSaito was established four years ago by the widow of local Japanese American artist Kikuo Saito, whose work and teaching practice focused on abstraction. The museum makes nurturing modern and abstract works and artists its main mission. Housed in what was once a Catholic school, the location, while beautiful and ample, does not attract the kind of foot traffic that Peekskill’s urban center can. 

“It’s really exciting to work in the downtown Peekskill community – we are kind of hidden in the hamlet of Verplanck,” says Meadowlark. She praises both the beautiful space and WCC Digital Gallery Director Sherry Mayo’s collaboration. 

Mayo believes the long-desired joint effort fits seamlessly with the Center’s educational purpose. “We’ve been in conversation with KinoSaito for quite a while to see how the synergy would work,” she says. And from both institutional perspectives, it has worked extremely well “There was a very diverse group at the opening, younger and older, and I love that it’s in a beautiful social space,” says Meadowlark.

Mayo gives a nod to the curation, and Jesek’s stature. “We’re honored to be her first local solo show. She’s had a lot of success already, it’s great to be part of her story, and so great to work with KinoSaito’s team and Megan in particular,” she says.

Visible through WCC’s plate glass windows on North Division Street day or night, Jesek’s images are a blend of glowing electronic lights and forms, sculptural and skeletal shapes, and two dimensional imagery. Some are still, and some are glowing, dynamic, and rotating. The inspirations range from music to science fiction to existential questions. The exhibition’s title, “Venus in Vectors,” evokes many of her works’ combination of classical references, alive in green or multi-hued, illuminated lines.

One piece, called “Trans Icon,” is particularly notable for curator Meadowlark, herself a member of the trans community. “We’re in a time when queer and trans voices are being erased,” she says. In this show, though, “the Trans Icon piece is right at the welcome desk. A symbol of inclusivity and pride and welcome,” Meadowlark adds, saying, “It’s part of the show’s inclusivity.”

Jesek, who identifies as LGBTQ1+, considers the piece an important salvo at a fraught moment. Calling art a “core part of her being” that she “cannot live without,” Jesek is mindful of history and current strife, while “the world is going to hell in a handbasket.” 

Born a bit more than a century after famed and innovative “Dadaist” photographer and artist Man Ray, who developed new ways of using film for imagery, Jesek is happy to be a bit subversive too, and altogether inventive. Although she is a technophile who embraces the new and has a studio space replete with the latest equipment, she’s also reverent about older technology often discarded, and determined to recycle and showcase ‘70s and ‘80s era mechanical, analog devices that were the forerunners of our now-so-digital world.

“I use a lot of vintage equipment in my stuff. A way I get an ‘80s sci-fi feel is using ‘80s and ‘90s equipment in the process. I’m also very inspired by music,” she says. Part of her drive is an anti-waste, pro-recycling ethic, part of it is the inherent inspiration from old tools, and part of it is wanting all of us to slow down and think, as well as interact. 

Jesek’s spirit of conservation extends to how she sells her art, too. She has moved away from offering Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), a digital form of ownership, despite how lucrative they can be, because of their energy use and environmental impact.

Meadowlark says that Jesek is producing without generative artificial intelligence. (AI) “The world is scary now. We don’t know what technology looks like,” Meadowlark says. Jesek’s incorporation of old-school projectors shows her human hand in creating her output, not as smooth works, but intriguingly ‘glitchy,” in fact part of a movement she’s been in for years called ‘Glitch Art.”.  

Meadowlark celebrates Jesek’s searching nature, connection with others, and capacity to inspire. “She’s asking what it means to exist online versus in the IRL [In Real Life] world, and how do you create community?” Meadowlark says. And the students walking through the doors of the Westchester Community College Digital Center are often close in age, also influenced by gaming culture, and perhaps asking some of the same questions. Meadowlark observes, with appreciation for the artist, “there’s corporate control over spaces that once felt like the wild west, and a lot of voices are being silenced, or  behind a pay wall,” but Jesek remains her own person.

Jasek is a fifth-generation Cold Spring native. At her show’s opening, a large contingent of family and friends came to support her efforts. Red dots, signifying a work has been  “sold,” spot the gallery walls. 

Now five years after the pandemic, where Jesek spent months in productive isolation, she is glad to be back interacting in multiple ways.  Look for more collaborations, with KinoSaito welcoming her creativity, musical ventures… and who knows what else?

“Venus in Vectors” is on display at the Center for Digital Arts Gallery at 27 North Division Street in Peekskill from September 2 until December 8, 2025.