As an interdisciplinary artist that bridges painting, drawing, and sculpture, my focus is on the expressive qualities of line and color as a means of representing and abstracting the embodied psychological and emotional complexities of the human experience. Using line as a gratification of the senses, I push towards a liberated body- through the rigidity of steel or the blankness of a page. I make slow three-dimensional drawings in space that shift perspectives via intuitive play and devotional labor. Within the process of bending and contouring metal tube I’m able to feel out the boundaries of what is structurally and metaphorically unrelenting. There is a tension inherent in transformation. 

These forms borrow from the material language of minimalism and the baroque, yearning to become something fleshed out, filled and belonged (to). The affect of color and surface in the work create distinct relationships between the foreground and background, absorbing or reflecting, much like human behavior. As these works strive to embrace their own fluidity, they flirt with and perform ideas about the self and identity. I am interested in the awareness of self in relation to objects, and see the encounter as an opportunity to probe and process further through bodily engagement. 

Drawing for me is an action, where looking leaves an impression, or trace. Therefore I conceive of space as an outline that can mirror the viewer and their individual experience. The self in time is entangled within the forces of desire, vulnerability, and expansion, and through this work I unapologetically explore loving an untamed expression, one rooted in romantic gesture and lyrical form. By investigating the potentialities of line and color in drawing, installation, and sculpture, I create an empathetic map that blurs categorical distinctions.

Jae Ford received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from Pratt Institute. Recent solo exhibitions include “Light Hand, Running” at Andrew Rafacz, as well as two-person exhibitions at Adler & Floyd (Chicago, IL) and Camayuhs (Atlanta, GA). Their work has been included in group exhibitions at Carrie Secrist Gallery, the Terrain Biannual, and ADDS Donna (Chicago, IL) among others.