Josh Allen and Katrina Pisetti first crossed paths at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2014 during their freshman year, bonding through shared classes and a mutual respect for each other’s work. Over time, their friendship deepened into something more creatively symbiotic. After graduating, life took them in different directions—Kat returned to Texas, while Josh split his time between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. During this period, both immersed themselves in their individual practices, working in various print shops and developing personal bodies of work. But in 2020, fate brought them back together when Kat moved back to Providence. The reunion sparked a spontaneous yet powerful artistic collaboration.

What started as casual drawing sessions quickly evolved into something richer and more profound. “It was new for both of us to make art with another, but we forged a strong and almost psychic communication,” they recall. In 2021, Velvet Other World was officially born. Their first studio became a crucible for creative experimentation, where the joy of making art together infused every piece with a distinct energy. “Making art together is so much fun and brings us a lot of joy, and we try to imbue our art with that energy,” they explain.

Their collaboration quickly took on a life of its own, merging their individual aesthetics into a cohesive and evocative visual language. Josh was focused on drawings about material, clothing, and form, while Kat’s work centered on the body, eroticism, and sculpture—both working in grayscale. Together, their ideas intertwined to form a world of mystery, drama, and carnal pleasures—a galaxy of their own creation. “It felt like we could finally make the work we always wanted to make,” they reflect.

VOW’s charcoal drawings explore themes of transformation and identity through the lens of costume and body modification. Their imagery is inspired by the history of theater, pageantry, and ceremonial dress, reflecting on how attire can simultaneously shield and reveal. Their indulgent, pneumatic figures are adorned with intricate textures and patterns, evoking a sense of armor while endowing the bodies with near-devotional stature. Their work is at once playful and commanding, teetering between hyper-masculine and hyper-feminine, deliberately forgoing fixed identity in favor of something more fluid and enigmatic.

Each piece is the result of a meticulous, physical process. VOW works on heavyweight paper that allows them to build and break down the surface repeatedly. Layers of charcoal are applied, sanded down, and reapplied—mirroring their conceptual exploration of the body’s encasement, modification, and transformation.

Velvet Other World is more than a studio practice—it is an immersive universe shaped by friendship, devotion, and the shared pursuit of creating something neither could have imagined alone. Through their collaboration, Josh Allen and Katrina Pisetti have not only found a new way of making art but have redefined what it means to merge identities into a singular, powerful creative force.