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Artist Statement

Creating is never an act of clarity or distillation but a squishing together of disparate elements; queerness, class, found junk, glitter, words, politics, poetry and rage. It’s this fizzy alchemy that I
look for in my work, and this can as easily come from picking through rubbish and day dreaming as consciously ‘making’. The space of the canvas becomes an active place, painting is akin to
becoming a material flaneur, seeking vernacular associations, assembling compositions made from journeying through the ‘outside’ of the studio and onto the inside of painting. Indeed, I’ve long ago given up treating my ‘place’ of work as a studio but rather a test bed of dirt and discoveries, a swirling whirlpool that occasionally rests before moving on.


I actively use my (late) diagnosis of ADHD as a methodology, seeking (neuro)-diverse connections, working on many paintings at a time and searching for the cross pollinations of ideas and materials. There is an insistence that the paintings exist beyond a repetitive visual language, the authorial signature of established themes and coherent recognisable styles. Enquiry moves upwards, downwards, through, with and against the works that are produced, conclusions left open, ideas hastily explored and then moved on from, eddies of interest that eventually peter out and shoot off in new directions. It’s in the act of painting itself, which I see as a performative process, where the disparate areas of my practice unite, these material methodologies and actions
binding meaning together.


My materials ARE my community of practice

Jordan by EllenKydd_02.jpg

Jordan McKenzie (born 1967) is a painter and academic based in London. He has completed a two year course at Turps Banana Studio Programme, London, Uk and is currently embarking on his MA Painting degree at the Royal College of Art He has exhibited both nationally and internationally in galleries, festivals and arts centers, including Acting Out, Ex Voto Gallery, London (groups show 2025), Only Shallow, Two Plus Two Gallery (group show 2025), Recreational Grounds VII, London (group show 2023) D Contemporary, London (group show 2022); PADA Gallery, Portugal (group show 2020); LUVA Gallery, London (solo show 2019); Freud Museum, London (solo show 2018); Yorkshire Sculpture Park (solo show 2014); KASA Gallery, Istanbul (solo show 2014); Arnolfini Gallery (solo show 2011); Courtauld Institute (group show 2011). His curatorial projects include LUPA (Lock Up Performance Art) a performance space run from a disused garage on the council estate where he lives in East London (2011-13); Look At The (E)state We're In, a major international conference about art and the council estate (2014); Live(E)lseWhere (co-curated with The Drawing Shed 2014). He has received major arts bursaries and awards from Arts Council England, Arts Admin and The Live Art Development Agency and been an artist in residence in numerous countries.

© 2023 by Jordan McKenzie

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