Depicting the nuance of identity within the Black queer community, Jon Key’s works are powerful and arresting
Ayla Angelos | January 18, 2021
The artist, writer and designer from Seale, Alabama, talks us through the motives behind his colour-blocked, narrative-driven paintings.
“All of the story and meaning behind my work is truly inspired by my life and my own personal history,” says Jon Key, a painter, writer and designer from Seale, Alabama. Through the harmony of these three mediums, Jon harnesses the power of four colours – green, black, violet and red – to unearth the lineage and history of his own identity. Such a quest is performed through the dissection of four themes of southernness, Blackness, queerness and family, each of which is explored in signature palettes of primary colour. “Respectively,” Jon tells It’s Nice That, “these colours intertwine my memory and intimate recounting of the four pillars grounding my work.”
