EXCLUSIVE: Meet Artist Jessica Yatrofsky

Jessica Yatrofsky is a New York-based, multidisciplinary artist and activist primarily known for film and photographic work exploring body politics, beauty, and gender. Yatrofsky is the first queer female photographer to partner with Coinbase NFT platform where she will be premiering a collection of photographs from her popular photography monograph, I Heart Girl. Today she spoke exclusively to Muzique

If you could live with just one work of art, what would it be?

Chopin’s Nocturne 

A lot of your work features activism, which cultural experience changed the way you see the world?

Growing up as an Ashkenazi Jew I was aware of the profound impact the Holocaust and antisemitism had on my family who fled Europe for a better future in the United States. I feel that it is our duty as humans to take an intrest in how we show up for each other and speak out against injustices. 

Your most famous poetry work is your collection called Pink Privacy. Please tell us more about your inspiration for this work. 

I wrote Pink Privacy in 72 hours. I wasn’t inspired by any one instance, it was more of a burst of cumulative experiences in my life I suddenly felt I needed to express, the poems took me by surprise, really. The experience was all consuming and I continued to write after I completed the collection. Pink Privacy was about love, lust, and everything in between, and it certainly poured out of me in a humorous way and at an extraordinarily expedited pace. 

Which writers or poets do you return to the most?

I love Valerie Solanas, Jason R Jimenez, Elaine Kahn and Kevin Killian. And recently I have been spending a lot of time with Val Kilmer’s Cowboy Poet Outlaw Madman that is currently sitting on my bedside table. 

What piece of your work are you most proud of and why? 

I’m obsessed with a film I directed many years ago that was never released, it’s called A Naked Heart. I adore what we captured and I can’t wait to share it with the world soon!

In your opinion, what is art for?

Activism.