Obviously, one of the artists we have been following and sharing over the past year is Jon Key, the Brooklyn/Margate-based artist who was featured in our WINTER 2024 Quarterly. It makes sense that his gallery would be showing him during the Frieze LA season, and the show is called Elsewhere.
Steve Turner is pleased to present Elsewhere, a solo exhibition featuring new paintings by Jon Key. During the summer of 2023, following six years of rigorous work and numerous exhibitions, Key decided to expand his studio practice to include more spontaneity and vulnerability. Where his works from the past few years were highly structured compositions in which each acrylic color represented an aspect of his life (red for family; green for Southerness; black for Blackness and violet for queerness), for Elsewhere Key loosened up his previous rules in an effort to convey more heartfelt, introspective moments from his own experience. He opted for a looser, freer brush stroke in oil rather than graphic precision. While the new work still depicts Jon’s likeness, his eyes are now closed and his arms are outstretched. This is a new vision.
