Born in 1985 in Mountain View, NC, Jen Clay earned a BFA from UNC Charlotte and an MFA from the University of Florida in 2014 with a minor in costume design and applied behavioral analysis. Now based in South Florida, Clay creates sensory-inclusive textile works and installations created to be inclusive to neurodivergent, visually impaired, and anxiety-sensitive audiences. Jen Clay’s early interactive works were presented at Girls Club Collection, the Norton Museum of Art, MOCA North Miami, and Miami Light Box, including Welcome to You&Me (2019), an installation created for neurodiverse children.
Clay has completed residencies at Oolite Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center. A short documentary about their work, The Texture of Anxiety, received a regional Emmy for its exploration of mental health through tactile art. In 2023, Clay received a Knight Arts New Work Award for a quilt-based video game and installation at Locust Projects that blended handmade textures with interactive storytelling. Their permanent public artwork, commissioned through Miami-Dade Art in Public Places, was installed at Brisas del Este Apartments in 2022.
Clay’s first solo exhibition at Emerson Dorsch, This World Doesn’t Belong to You (2023), featured quilted works with sewn messages created during the pandemic to address collective and personal anxiety, and visitors were allowed to discover the sewn messages. Their interactive quilt Soft Night Watching is currently on view at the Ackland Art Museum through June 2026, inviting visitors to discover hidden messages through touch.
Most recently, Clay was an artist-in-residence at the McColl Center (January–April 2025) tocreate a soft-theature-like set that was shown at the Girls’Club Collection with programming that included a talk with Annie Hoffman called “Strange Days: Sensory Worlds and Mental Weather” explores mental health, sensory experiences, and the eerie threads that shape Jen’s work. This talk invites you to sit with uncertainty and reflect on what it means to be human in a world that often feels overwhelming and mysterious.. Across their practice, Clay uses textiles, softness, and storytelling to create accessible environments that offer comfort, imagination, and emotional connection. They live and work in South Florida and is represented by Baker-Hall gallery.
