Vetiver

Vetiver (b. 1989) is an interdisciplinary artist, facilitator, printmaker, and land steward. Their practice centers on preserving Black queer & trans identities & narratives and promoting spiritual wellness. Identifying as nonbinary & trans-masculine, Vetiver pulls from their lived experience to highlight the challenges of existing at a particularly targeted intersection in society, and employs their ancestry and relationship with nature to establish connections between the communities to which they belong.

Vetiver was the first artist from the Community Arts MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art to hold residency at the B&O Railroad Museum, where they developed the first arts-based program, The Roundhouse Connection, for middle school students. Following graduation in 2022, they held their first solo exhibition, Choose Your Gender, at Transformer DC, which centered on gender and identity and their grappling with them. In 2024, they were one of two resident artists in the Joshua Johnson Council x Maryland Institute College of Art x Baltimore Museum of Art Artist-in-Residence program, where they created their first iteration of the living archive for the Black queer and trans community. In addition to exhibiting works throughout Baltimore City, they currently steward Blue Light Junction, a natural dye initiative, as Garden & Studio Manager, where they study the spiritual benefits and interdependence of plants and the cultural significance and heritage of working with natural dyes. As co-founder of Lacy Oasis, a Black-owned recreational land in Owings, MD (Piscataway Territory), they help steward the land with their sister to ensure the legacy of their late grandmother, Julia Lacy, is fulfilled. With printmaking, Vetiver continues to work on a living archive dedicated to preserving Black queer and trans narratives through portraiture and transcribed interviews.