Jordan King Blurred Lines Exhibition 2022
Friday, June 3th - Friday, June 24th, 2022
The Strand Center for the Arts was thrilled to host “Blurred Lines,” artwork created by artist, Jordan King, in the Main Gallery.
Born in rural northern Vermont, King moved to New York City to explore his future possibilities as an artist. Living in Brooklyn helped him explore his path as a creative, as well as being a Queer individual, something that he felt fell outside of the constraints of rural life. Studying at Pratt Institute, he received his Associates degree in Fine Arts and his Bachelor’s degree in the same major with a focus in painting.
Concerning his work, King stated: “Whether it be in my painting, prints, ceramics, or bookmaking, I have always kept myself and my art separate, but once I was forced back to Vermont by the pandemic it seemed crucial to start making work that was deeply personal to myself.”
King’s process revolves around the use of painter’s tape, a reoccurring element in his work. The act of covering up and then peeling away multiple times helps to further distort the image he has drawn underneath the tape. Once one-half of the “stripes” are painted, he peels back the tape, covers them again, and paints the alternating lines. Recently, he has begun to explore the further distortion that occurs when the width of the “stripes” increases or decreases from their usual one-inch parameters, resulting in information and identity being further lost. The idea to use these specific images came from late-night scrolling for random listings on eBay under the search guide of “Found Images.”
“What I found,” King stated, “was a plethora of memories belonging to families, friends, coworkers, and lovers of individuals I will never one day know. Their anonymity being commodified online originating from a finite moment taken on Polaroid film. Their identities in comparison to me are completely removed, and they beg the question of ‘who do they belong to?’ This detachment that I have from my own subject matter feels familiar to the detachment I have from my own familial and childhood memories, which now seem blurred and distorted from various traumas in my early-life.”
