William Martin Jean CONVERGE Artist Talk at Judson Manor

On Wednesday, July 28^th 4:00 – 5:00, join Archived Artist William Martin Jean and CONVERGE curator Kelly Pontoni for an in-person artist talk at Judson Manor.

Jean will discuss his work in the exhibition, which includes the Ancient Fragment and Vestment Series, two collections deeply impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic and his experience as a bi-racial gay man during the crisis. As Jean describes, “As I look back over the years of the works represented in this series of exhibitions, I am struck by the strong effect the AIDS crisis had on my work during that period and after. When the AIDS crisis struck, my work was already changing, becoming more introspective, spiritual and somber…. Other works during this period became more sensuous, with fragmented body parts and more heavily textured surfaces.”

About William Martin Jean:  Widely acclaimed for his elegant systems-based art, William Martin Jean creates paintings that combine rational, intellectual experience with personal, intuited feeling. During his early years, Jean created improvisatory paintings with rich impasto surfaces. In the early 1970s he began seeking more control over the creative process and developed a personal language of ordered structure, often basing his compositions on a predetermined mathematical grid. The new structures were inspired partly by Pre-Columbian pyramids that Jean encountered in Mexico. For the past two decades, architecture has remained a dominant concern of Jean’s art. More recently, Jean has also been creating small collage paintings, often by gluing and sewing materials on paper.

About CONVERGE at Judson Manor: Part of the CONVERGE exhibition of Ohio LGBTQ art, CONVERGE at Judson features LGBT artists from the Archives’ permanent collection including Robert Jergens, William Martin Jean, Thomas Roese, Roy Bigler, and Terry Durst, as well as private works for sale by Jergens, Jean, and Roese. Now on view until September 26th.