Today we’d like to introduce you to Gregory King.
Hi Gregory, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My name is Greg King, but I’m better known as King G to my friends. They call me that because–obviously–I was in a rap band from 1989-1992 called King G and The J Krew.
We were white kids from the suburbs of Louisville, Kentucky, who saw RUN DMC live in 1988 and were inspired. I was a pianist and gear geek back then and had Yamaha synthesizers and drum machines during the age of independent 4-track home recording, and my friends and I were restless and bored in suburbia, so the rest is…history? Anyway, the nickname stuck despite the fact that my rap career concluded in the late 20th Century.
I make art, films, and music and support myself as a film editor, but I’ve been a visual artist all my life. In first grade I remember getting praise for drawing Dr Seuss characters and dressing up as a Painter (with a beret and smock) for a costume event. I was stupefyingly fortunate to attend a magnet high school in Louisville that had a fantastic visual arts program, and it was there that my friends and I decided we would pursue art as our careers–be it visual, music, film, or whatever made sense. I crossed state lines and attended the Kansas City Art Institute to get my Bachelor’s of Fine Art, and there I majored in printmaking, naturally (as so many aspiring hip-hop artists did back then), where I learned how to make etchings, woodcuts, lithographs, and the like. That is to say, printing techniques that date back hundreds of years because my finger was on the PULSE of culture in the early 90s.
I always wanted to live in bigger-cities-than-Louisville, so after undergrad, I moved to Chicago in 1994 to sort of officially start my career. That is to say, I had no clear goals in mind, but I figured Chicago was big enough to find interesting things to do. I wanted to make artist’s books and other print matter as part of my newfound Printmaker pedigree, so I used the money I’d made painting a public mural with my best friend Jason (one of the J Krew), and I bought an offset printing press. It was an ancient Multilith 1250W, and it was a piece of shit, but it was MY piece of shit that I could do with as I pleased. At first, Jason and I used the press to make CD booklets for a band he’d started (which I also joined), but I ended up running my own printing business for about 7 years. I made embarrassingly little money doing so, but I was working for myself, which I loved, and the bug to be my own boss took root. I’ve been self-employed to this day in one way or another. In the 1990s, I also got into oil painting as my main medium and won some lovely grants that supported my art practice, so I was able to maintain a studio and buy supplies. I was a broke artist on paper, but I had expensive tubes of paint.
The band my friend Jason started was called Rachel’s, and while I played vibraphone and hand drum for them, my main role was creating experimental Super 8 art films that I projected during our live shows when we toured. “Experimental Super 8 art films” is exactly what it sounds like: non-narrative film poems on grainy, low-rez celluloid, but possessing a beautiful tonal range and aura of nostalgia that was the opposite of ‘video,’ which I loathed at the time. Our music was purely instrumental, inspired by such composers as Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, as well as the experimentalism of independent music of the 90s. It was a special blend of strings, piano, guitar/bass, percussion, and electronic techniques, which was emotionally evocative and ‘cinematic’ in feel, so my film work was well suited to it. Over the 12 years of the band’s existence, we toured all over the United States and Europe and were well-received in the alternative/indie scenes.
Touring with Rachel’s took us to New York City several times, and I grew to love it, so I moved there in 2000. I thought a good way to connect with the art scene was to attend grad school, so I went to Hunter College for my master’s degree. I chose Hunter in part because it was the largest program in the city, with a great reputation, so I met many artists who were serious about their careers. I received a fellowship to attend grad school, so that time was special in that I was able to really focus on my work and dig into the NYC art world. While at Hunter I reconsidered my hatred of video and took a class in it, and there I learned the basics of nonlinear editing with Final Cut Pro (I had no idea at the time how consequential that would be). This was at the time when DV video had taken off for artists and low-budget filmmakers to make quality work on equipment that wasn’t hugely expensive, and I grew to love shooting and editing video. To me, editing was akin to drawing and painting, as I could add and subtract elements in myriad ways and experiment with it through relatively simple–but powerful–software tools. I mean, I had been editing Super 8 film before this with 1970s-era cutting tools and splicing tape, so it was mind-blowing. After grad school, I found myself growing less interested in painting and more focused on film and video work, and before long, I started getting work as a video editor.
Because of my involvement with Rachel’s, I had met people in the NYC world of experimental theater and dance, as our music was often used to score productions in the off-Broadway scene. When certain directors learned of my art film work, I was invited to design video projections for plays and dance performances, which became an unexpected creative outlet I thoroughly enjoyed. One highlight of my career was designing projections for the play ‘Hotel Cassiopeia’ by Charles Mee, which was a lyrical portrait of the artist Joseph Cornell, whose work I already loved. The play was created and performed by The SITI Company under the direction of Anne Bogart, and it was part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave festival of 2007, which was a special thrill as BAM was my favorite performance venue.
That same year, two things happened that changed the course of…whatever you want to call all this stuff I was doing (a career?): first, I was inspired to make a documentary about a group of ‘anarchist Christian squatter punks’ I randomly met that were running a community space for the homeless in Brooklyn, and second, I was asked by a TV producer friend to assist her in editing a documentary, as her regular editors were unavailable. In both projects I was able to apply my art film sensibilities to editing while also getting a crash course in documentary storytelling (where no script exists). Before these two events I had no goal to pursue documentaries, but I quickly realized that the genre uniquely suited me. I found that I loved the challenge of bringing the stories of real people to life in an artistically compelling way. I didn’t stop making my own visual art, but I wasn’t supporting myself with it either, so film editing became my “day job,” and I was excited about what it could lead to.
After having lived in NYC for over a decade, I was ready for a change (i.e, I’d had it up to HERE with the rats and the filth and the trains and the weather and the parking tickets and…). Through connections I had made in the film, I started working with people in the LA area, albeit long distance, and contemplated moving. Then, quite coincidentally, my wife’s job required her to relocate, and she was given the choice of moving either to Washington D.C…or to Los Angeles. It was like a door had opened, and so we moved to LA in 2011 and settled in Silverlake (Yes, I know: a lot of former New Yorkers have done the same and screwed up the rent prices. SORRY). I soon found a studio space downtown in the Spring Arts Tower, a beautiful 100-year-old office building that is home to The Last Bookstore. The floor I was on resembled a suite of detective offices from a classic 1940s film noir, with dark wood trim everywhere and mottled glass doors; I loved it. while other transplants I know had a hard time adjusting to Los Angeles, I immediately liked it, and couldn’t believe I had a studio within walking distance of The Bradbury Building, where they shot parts of Blade Runner. Also, my wife and I had just gotten married before we arrived, so moving here was literally the beginning of our life together, and we were having a great time comparing everything to nasty ol’ New York.
As a self-employed ne’er-do-well, finding work has never been about scouring job sites, as they’ve never led to anything that interesting, frankly. I’ve relied much more on reaching out to people that I know as friends. I’ve tried to cultivate real relationships with other creative folks wherever I’ve lived, so it’s about authentic connection with people that know me and what I can bring to the table, and how I can hopefully do the same for them. After a couple years struggling to find work, a friend connected me with an experienced editor in LA, and although it took a full year to finally meet for coffee, we did just that, and I had a bona fide meet-for-coffee-in-Los-Angeles with a proper Film Industry Person. After regaling her with stories of my past in the rap industry, she soon helped me land a gig on a feature documentary. The project was about the illustrious LA food writer Jonathan Gold, called City of Gold (directed by Laura Gabbert), and it couldn’t have been a better project to get, being relatively new to the city. I was exposed to dozens of great restaurants and taco trucks through Gold’s work, and the city came more alive for us. But then, City of Gold was accepted to Sundance in 2015, which was a huge boost for me professionally, as it was my first time at the festival. Its success on the festival circuit and through special LA screenings made me feel lucky to live here.
Since then, I’ve continued to focus on independent feature documentaries and have been fortunate to work on projects about topics that I find meaningful, such as climate change, environmental activism, and independent music. Films I’ve edited have shown at SXSW, the Tribeca Film Festival, Hot Docs, Doc NYC, and numerous festivals in the US and Europe, and have been available on Netflix, Hulu, Prime, and HBO Max. In 2018, I moved my studio to the Keystone Art Space in Lincoln Heights, and I’ve continued my art practice there with painting, drawing, photography, video, and sculpture. In 2022, I was invited to collaborate on an ambitious video installation and live music piece with composer Christian Frederickson (a fellow member of Rachel’s back in the day), called The Hammer and The Feather, which we premiered at MIT in Cambridge, through their theater department, and we’ve begun the process of showing it elsewhere around the country. I’m currently editing a feature doc of my own about The SITI Company, the theater company I’d gotten to know in my years in New York, and how their artistic practice and teaching philosophy set them apart. And finally, I’m making new studio work for a solo show at Keystone in our gallery space.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Like many artists and creative types, I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety, especially as it relates to my career. Unlike some professions, there isn’t an easily definable career track to follow as an independent artist, nor are there many ‘elder/apprentice’ opportunities when one is getting started. I didn’t come from a family that was versed in contemporary culture or who had money or connections in the arts, so I had no idea as a young person what the future could look like other than I had to ‘make stuff.’ But my closest friends in high school shared the same background and feelings as me–it was how we came to be so close, in fact–and as we galvanized our identity as artists, we had each other to define our paths together.
My best friend Jason was critical to my life as an artist. We met the first day of high school, and immediately connected as ‘art nerds’ that would rather draw than play sports. We encouraged each other, competed in the same art contests, challenged each other’s ideas, learned all kinds of new media together (e.g. photography and computer design), and set off on our careers, knowing we’d always collaborate and support each other along the way. Jason was the one who started the band Rachel’s, in fact, and some of the happiest days of my life were spent on the road with him and the others as we played in rock clubs, libraries, Florentine churches in Italy, 19 th Century train roundabouts, art museums, laundromats, dive bars, and finally at the Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, when we played our last show in 2006. I simply cannot imagine what my life would be like without him.
But I bring up Jason in the context of challenges and obstacles because he died in 2012 after a 3-year saga with cancer. To say that it was a personal tragedy is an understatement. It was like a nuclear bomb going off. I was brought low, so terribly low.
With my propensity for depression, there were times that I didn’t care about art anymore. I’ve felt so lost that even 12 years later, it stops me cold at times to know he’s not here to talk to about everything important in life. Added to that, my wife Ashley (who was my girlfriend at the time) was diagnosed in 2010 with nearly the same cancer type as Jason’s, one year after he was diagnosed. But while the same chemotherapy regimen wiped out her disease, Jason wasn’t as lucky. Los Angeles just so happened to be my new home when he died, as Ashley and I had just moved here, and much to my surprise, I found this city healing. The weather and natural terrain were certainly part of it, but having just left New York and the stress that the city can induce, I found LA to have a pace and–yes–VIBE that was helpful. Which is good because, as things go, it wasn’t too long before it was my turn to get cancer.
In 2014, one month after our son Gabriel was born, I was diagnosed with lymphoma of the upper jaw. I was very well taken care of at UCLA Medical Center, but it was an extremely sh*tty experience, and I wasn’t so much scared as I was angry to be entering Cancerland again. At the time, I was deep into the edit of City of Gold with the director, as we were racing to get it in shape to submit to Sundance. So, I was receiving chemotherapy treatment while editing full-time and adjusting to a newborn at home. But I was determined to give it my best, and it was accepted to the festival, which felt great.
My chemo schedule was such that I was fortunately able to attend the festival. I was exhausted the whole time, but the premiere was a blast, and it felt like an achievement.
I hate sitting around, ‘being sick,’ so I was extremely grateful to have had the film to work on during that ordeal. On a lighter note, a friend of mine who teaches film in LA tells her students now that they have no excuse for turning in assignments late because an editor friend of hers “was in treatment for cancer and yet still got the cut on time to Sundance.”
Nearly ten years on, I’ve been part of a great community of artists at Keystone Art Space, in Lincoln Heights. I purposefully wanted a studio space in a building of visual artists, which I hadn’t had for a long time. The desire to make art again took time, but I’ve been building up some momentum with new media and ideas and some different approaches to oil painting than what I’ve done before. I find the LA art scene supportive and celebratory, so it’s been a great place to be at this time in my life.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My work is informed by a lifelong political concern for the tension between humans and the environment, and with our scientific progress, as the age of climate change has taken root. We have the technological means to do miraculous things as much as we can render our world uninhabitable, but too often, we hope someone else is minding the situation as we doomscroll on our phones and buy shares in AI companies. The conflict between the creative and the destructive within us grips me as a far better–and healthier–world feels so close to realization at times. From gob-smacked awe at such achievements as the James Webb Space Telescope to abject fear when we reach an annual global heat record, I feel conflicted about making art, as it seems like such a small gesture in the face of it all. But we are also at the dawn of AI, which poses dangers to the work of artists, so my emotions are tempered by the need to make rather than collapse in paralysis. And, perhaps ironically, I have wanted to make patient, time- consuming work with oils and canvas again–after a long hiatus from painting–as a rebellious response to the invasion of AI in image-making. What feels healthy to me is to re-invest in my natural abilities and accept ‘imperfections’ rather than adopt the uncanny smoothness that so much AI-assisted visual media possesses. And while a lot of my older work was leading more and more into abstraction, I’m currently interested in exploring representation, where a poetic storytelling impulse guides a narrative taking place within and between pieces. This ‘narrative’ wavers between the personal/private and outward, more socio-political propositions, but it is set within a world beset by environmental and technological pressures.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.gregking.space
- Instagram: @gregking_space
- Other: Bandcamp: gregoryking.bandcamp.com/ Vimeo: vimeo.com/gregking
Image Credits
Andre Smits
