Today we’d like to introduce you to Jack Arthur Wood
Jack Arthur, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My artistic path began when I saw a Keith Haring documentary in 7th grade art class thanks to Mrs. Lair. I began copying his language obsessively.
I got really into stencils and graffiti after I read about Shepard Fairey in Transworld Skateboarding Magazine. I had some close friends who were writers at the time too. Skateboarding and later on DIY music cultures were my entry into the world of contemporary art. The other person/life event I would credit is my dad. When I was seven or eight years old my dad turned his poster collecting hobby into his full time job and opened a Gallery in our hometown of Cincinnati. He specializes in period graphics from the turn of the century, but tends to collect a little bit of everything. Through my dad I was exposed at a very early age to Milton Glaser, Nicholas Krushenick, Emory Douglas, Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson, William Bradley, Alphonse Mucha, Leonetto Capiello, Victor Vasarely, Toulouse- Lautrec, Jules Cheret, The Wiener Werkstätte, Lester Beall and so many other design giants of the last 200 odd years. Growing up was a very visually privileged experience for me and I hold more images in my brain than I could possibly explain.
I attended Guilford college for undergrad and earned a BA in Printmaking. Print logic is central to everything I do. I studied with Roy Nydorf, John Gall, and Kathryn Shields. I was also a double major in Religious Studies and focused on Tibetan Cosmology which made a mark on my personal beliefs. Guilford is a Quaker school and their principles have shaped my moral compass.
I went back to Cincinnati after school and got involved in the DIY scene and the local print Co-Op called Tiger Lily Press where I was tolerated and saved by a dedicated group of primarily women who’ve kept that shop alive much to the benefit of everyone in the Cincinnati Arts community. Clay Street Press, Hudson & Jones Gallery, Wave Pool Gallery, Carl Solway Gallery, ÆQAI Arts Journal, Jay Bolotin, Jerome Jaffe, Justin Greene, Dylan Tennison, Southpaw Prints and Emil Robinson were all institutions and people that influenced and sustained me when I was first envisioning myself as a career artist. Cincinnati has a really incredible community of creative people and I wouldn’t be me without them, I wouldn’t know how.
I also worked at an auction house called EBTH.com from 2012-2018 first as a cataloger focusing on art and authentication then as an editor. Through this job I collected prints by Georges Rouault, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Ando Hiroshige and folk art objects and painting by Sulton Rogers, James Harold Jennings and Mose Tolliver. I also collected West African art, primarily Baule Figures from the Ivory Coast. Folk art and the disenfranchisement/erasure of ethnographic traditions later became areas of study for me in graduate school.
In 2015 I moved to Corpus Christi Texas and went to the graduate program at Texas A&M–Corpus Christi. I got my masters in Printmaking and had an assistantship at the University Galleries that changed my life. I taught a lot during this time and received a lot of faculty mentorship as I was ostracized by my cohort more than I was embraced. After my thesis exhibition in Winter of 2017 I started applying to residencies at the behest of my Department Chair and mentors. I was miraculously accepted to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and went in 2018. That experience continues to be a mirror for me in everything I do. The people I met and voices I encountered forever changed me and cemented my path in painting. Meeting and working with Josephine Halvorson and Henry Taylor was particularly powerful. Through the learning and the friendships I gained I knew I needed to be in New York.
I returned to Texas and taught in Kingsville and Corpus for another semester which felt like the longest time. I knew I wanted to leave and when I received a fellowship to attend the Wassaic Project Artist Residency I knew I had my chance. I went to New York and lived upstate at the residency for six months and slowly transitioned to living in the city.
Since moving to the city I have lived in Brooklyn and Ridgewood and my studio is currently in Ridgewood very close to where I live. I share space with artists I love and respect and my attachment to the community I have found here despite often dire circumstances is completely worth it. My studiomates and neighbors have been Catherine Mulligan, Gaby Collins-Fernandez, Kylie Manning, Maggie Barrett, Sarah Davidson, Chris Daharsh and my partner Lauren Clark. I feel so privileged to walk in the same creative spaces and tend to think I wouldn’t have made it this far without them.
Soloway gallery gave birth to my curatorial endeavors which have continued although I left the gallery early this year. I am currently co-curating an exhibition opening July 13th at Thomas VanDyke Gallery. I have work in an exhibition at Chart Gallery in Tribeca and am working towards another show in September with Heskin Projects. I am grateful and feel a sense of fulfillment I never thought possible.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
At long last I feel like I’ve gotten somewhere on the road to satisfaction. Which is to say I’ve been looking back a lot lately. I’ve sacrificed made some painful sacrifices to keep making art. Being as dedicated as I am to my work has cost me most of my romantic relationships, some friendships, and more than anything it costs a lot of money. There are these moments, in everybody’s life I hope, where you quickly become aware of the choice between two paths. To embrace one means the death of the other. What that literally means is usually out of your control and it feels bittersweet to a degree little else does.
I think being in Corpus Christi after finishing graduate school was the most difficult time because I knew I wanted to leave but was obligated by my students. I loved them so much. I was teaching full time and commuting a pretty good ways from Corpus Christi to Taft and Kingsville. That spring semester of 2019 was right after I’d been away at a residency that remains one of my life’s most impactful experiences. In Texas I carried that experience like a burden, I let it disrupt my perception, clung to it too tightly. Driving through the desert at night and through the marshy dunes around Corpus Christi, to and from schools; I would call my friends in New York and try to feel that closeness through the phone. I found it hard to be present and ended up deeply unhappy and burnt out. I loved teaching in those communities but often felt like my contribution was too small to make a difference. I remember students at Taft lamenting to me that they’d been without an English teacher for months because “no one wants to live here.” I think the acquiescence to adjunct staffing practices in higher education is incredibly dangerous and a disgusting betrayal. The same could be said about the treatment of any educational professional in this country. Ultimately, and against my better judgement, the compensation didn’t match the sweat and I left for New York, uncertain I would stay but knowing I needed to try. I had been talking about moving to NYC for eight years at that point.
I was in residence at the Wassaic Project for six months, after which I moved to the city. I survived on peanut butter but cannot remember another time as joyful. The residency provided me with the confidence and contacts I needed to land on my feet in the most confusing place I’ve ever lived.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I stain swatches of fabric with gradients and then glue them into complicated symmetrical compositions often referencing the architecture of the city or veering off into more absolute abstraction. People often remark about my use of light, that my paintings are descriptive of joy and spirituality. Most of the things I make reference something real, but I believe that artistic language should always be removed by a degree or two, or a loose screw, from whatever is being described. I have never had much satisfaction from faithfully rendering reality. I don’t think it’s possible to make representational art that conveys the experience of being alive. In my work I am deciphering my shadow and trying to have visionary experiences through picture making that give meaning to the difficult and ecstatic feelings without words.
More than anything else I delight in color. Playing with color and experiencing the physical reality of pigment is magic to me. Pushing color and what I think I know about it with variation and chance is one of my favorite ways to spend my time. I hope the joy I feel is evident and reciprocated by others when they experience my paintings in the wild or at home.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
LA really isn’t a place I have that much experience of. I have frequently been told my work belongs, or would “do better” on the west coast and I intend to find out if this is true. The first dealer I ever worked with had a space in Chinatown during the late 90s and early 2000s.
What I like best about LA are the people I know there. Rebecca Shippee, Jenny Gagalka, Jarvis Boyland, Annie Render, Jules Itzkoff, Lyndon Probst and Mich Miller are all artists I know and admire. Their work inspires me and being around them is time well spent.
Further, there are many artists in LA whom I’ve not met but would very much like to meet, for instance Jean Nagai and Kirsty Luck just to name two.
I dislike the sprawl, dependency on car culture, and the clout seeking.
Pricing:
- Inquiries about pricing and available works can be directed to Chart Gallery.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jackarthurwood.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackarthurwood/
Image Credits
Bradley Marshall
