Josh Jordan

This series of paintings centers on the desire for personal connection and understanding in a shared experience. The imagery is presented as a means of grappling with the perceived expectations, obligations, and consequences of straight masculinity as I learned them as an only child in a desolate small town in the midwest with an imposing parochial education system. I draw on my own life experiences to explore a world of familial intimacy, its impact on adolescent sexuality, and the resulting complicated yearning for personal joy as an adult. Throughout my work, I contrast scenes of sensual pleasure with satire to confront my anxieties and guilt as I seek closure from the past and hope for a better future.

Josh Jordan's work examines how pop culture has informed his identity, both in codes of behavior as well as in ideation. Through the mediums of painting, video, and sculpture Jordan explores the way in which an engagement with pop cultural influences has shaped his psyche. His work combines an elaborate fantasy with poignant autobiographical events. Jordan's paintings explore the themes of a childhood and adolescent tendency toward dreams, melodrama, and infatuation. The imagery found in his paintings is an amalgamation of childhood influences; directly referencing blockbuster films and album covers, as well as magazine photo shoots and early music videos. Tension between fantasy and reality is created by combining and remixing the lowbrow, historic, and high art elements with personal photos. The narrative lens of Jordan's work is focused on adolescence as a means of exploring the evolving understanding of masculinity, its dilemma of what to engage and what to reject in the role of initiating intimacy, and the conflicted desire for adoration, admiration, social authentication, and meaningful affirmation. It examines the concept of masculinity and flouts its challenges, blind spots, and limitations, perhaps even conveying this perpetual struggle by depicting scenes of absurdity, humor, and chivalrous romanticism. Jordan's most recent work focuses more on process of painting and the tradition of German Expressionist and Les Nabis art movements to evoke a sense of dream state. In the age of the Selfie and the creation of the online Alter-Ego, Jordan's work exemplifies a re-representation of the self. Jordan presents himself as the central protagonist within an expanded narrative to expose his desires and fears, in order to call attention to the fragility of the self.