Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Gottlieb.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Visual art became my language before I could properly read. As a neurodivergent child with visual processing challenges—where letters looked like objects, ‘h’ resembled a chair—I found success through drawing while struggling academically. Ironically, long before my learning disabilities were diagnosed, I was modeling for my father’s commercial photography and appeared on the cover of ‘Why is My Child Having Trouble at School?’
This wasn’t unusual in our family. My father had also modeled for his father’s work—my grandfather William P. Gottlieb created educational filmstrips and publications featuring his own family in idyllic suburban scenes. This creative legacy gave me an early awareness of how images can both document truth and construct fiction, informing my lifelong fascination with the tension between visual meaning and narrative.
My early successes in drawing and painting led me to attend the visual arts program at North Carolina School of the Arts as a boarding student for my junior and senior year in high school. Being immersed in a community of creatives was a transformative experience. Art school felt like home—I never wanted to leave. Although I’ve worked outside academia, I’ve essentially been gravitating back to educational environments ever since.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Teaching and client work generally flow smoothly for me. My personal artistic practice—which I consider a form of spiritual exploration—tends to be more turbulent, partly because I’m drawn to ambitious challenges and difficult subjects.
Take my MFA thesis ‘Eat Yourself’—a mobile game about a self-cannibalistic pig named Pinky that critiqued consumer culture through childhood nostalgia. While critically successful in academia, the realities of commercial indie game development proved isolating and exhausting. In this sense my personal work often serves as a barometer for balance—measuring the transcendent rush of creation against what’s actually sustainable for me.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m known for pairing hopeful aesthetics with challenging subjects—think cute, colorful self-cannibalistic pig. I hope my reputation includes being kind, thoughtful, and refreshingly weird.
From 2015-2020, I co-directed MICA’s Graphic Design MFA program, where education became perhaps my most sacred work. During this period, I designed and illustrated the cover for Ellen Lupton’s ‘Design is Storytelling’—a hieroglyphic grid of simplified pictograms of the book’s interior illustrations, with one addition – a farting baby (my personal touch).
Currently, I’m full-time faculty in MICA’s Graphic Design BFA program, mentoring students on their thesis projects and teaching various design classes. I absolutely love my job and consider it an honor to work with such inspiring students and colleagues.
Recently, I’ve been researching and experimenting with generative AI. While cautious about these new tools, I feel responsible for engaging and critiquing them through hands-on experience. My current work-in-progress, ‘Love with Pain: An AI Drag Operetta Against Fascism,’ feels like a full-circle moment, combining themes, processes, tools, and visuals from throughout my lifelong creative journey.
How do you think about luck?
I’ve been fortunate to have many exceptional teachers who believed in me. As a white, cisgender man who’s also neurodivergent and queer, I’ve experienced both privilege and marginalization—that duality has been instructive. In one sense luck happens when preparation meets opportunity, so I try to work hard and not take things for granted. In another sense I am lucky to have good health, food, shelter, and safety—when millions worldwide don’t.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.studiogottlieb.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gottlieb.ai/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jason.m.gottlieb
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-gottlieb-11a0b36/
Image Credits:
Image 1: Stills from AI Dummies, 2024
Image 2: Stills from Why I Is My Child Having Trouble at School?, 2024 original cover photo: Steve Gottlieb, original cover design: Cindy La Breacht
Image 3: Exhibition Photos and Stills from Eat Yourself, 2013
Image 4: Cover Design + Illustration for Design is Storytelling by Ellen Lupton, 2017
Image 5: Stills from Love with Pain — An AI Drag Operetta Against Fascism, 2025
