Gossamer Rozen, also known as grelysian, is a multidisciplinary artist of African American and Filipino heritage who works across hand-poked tattooing, machine knitting, and pixel-based digital art. Rozen applies the same grid-based, dot-by-dot process to tattoo ink, stitched textiles, and pixel drawings, treating each medium as a variation on one mark-making method. The work is closely tied to Rozen's identity as a transgender, nonbinary artist.
Rozen earned a BFA in sculpture from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2012, having grown up drawing manga, anime, and comic-inspired illustration. That training carried into a self-taught tattoo practice built on hand-poked, dot-by-dot mark-making, and into textile and knitting work informed by Rozen's African American and Filipino heritage. Based in Brooklyn, Rozen has collaborated with brands including the Boston Globe, Patagonia, Squarespace, and Dr Martens. In 2021 Rozen began Mrammou, a series of hand-drawn illustrations based on Akan gold weights, brass objects once used to measure gold dust as currency among West Africa's Akan people, released as digital collectibles that let collectors trade and combine artworks. Rozen also served as lead artist and art director on Woodies NFT, through which Rozen helped raise more than $200,000 for reforestation efforts that funded the planting of one million trees.
