J.D. King
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
J.D. King is an innovative American artist who has explored the edges of surreality while creating sophisticated illustrations for a wide range of campaigns and clients, including Absolut Vodka, Atlantic Records, Bravo, Condé Nast Publications, Discover, MasterCard, Outre Gallery Press[1], Scholastic Press, Sony, Stash Records and WFMU-FM.
His art, once described as going "from 2D to 2.5D," sometimes appears to meander through hallucinatory, labyrinthine hallways of prismatic peculiarities. King's creations display a colorful and distinctive modernist approach, influenced by everything from op art, pop art and music to the pulsating patterns found in the festive, decorative album covers of Jim Flora. As King recalls:
- Starting in 1986, my work took a sudden and decidedly modernist path. I lost interest in the way I had been working in underground comix and developed interests in jazz and modern art. I frequented little galleries uptown and museums like the Modern. It dovetailed with a growing interest in jazz, both interests took place almost at once, one feeding the other. I was going to jazz clubs by night and museums by day. I was very fortunate in that I had a friend, Gina Guy, who worked at the Museum of Modern Art. She'd give me free passes.
Newspapers with his illustrations include The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. In addition to book illustration (Martin McIntosh's Beatsville), he has contributed to numerous magazines, including Adweek, American Spectator, Bicycling, BusinessWeek, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, Heavy Metal, Kiplinger's, MacWorld, New York, The New Yorker, Newsweek, The Progressive and Time. Beastniks, a comic strip inspired by beatniks, ran in Drawn & Quarterly and Twist during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Interviewed by Arthur Childs in 2006, King explained his working methods:
- I began using line and color and shading in ways that transpose classical and cubist and op. Which brings us to where I am today. What I do is instinctual. That is, I will read and view and analyze, but after I've absorbed that, I just start working. These days, I begin with a very loose sketch. I scan it into my Mac and from there begin working on it. And I just keep at it for days until it's completed. I keep adding to it and adding and adding, then subtracting. And adding. I stop and look at it, study it and work some more. It's very analytical, but I'm not thinking in words, just visually or musically. I like to find ways to lead an eye in a direction, then turn back on it... Then at some point, I think it's done. I print it out, study that, see that I'm far from done and go back to work. I like dreams. In my drawings, I try to create a little world that's akin to a dream, a little world that one can, in one's mind, walk around in and, hopefully, want to return to take another stroll. To build that little world, I'll borrow from anything: cubism, classical, surrealism, pop, op, whatever. LP covers, old ads.
JJ Sedelmeier Productions teamed with Curious Pictures to animate King's eccentric cartoon characters for a Nick@Nite promotional film, and Curious also animated King's creations for a U.S. Cellular Phone commercial.
His artwork has been displayed in various awards annuals, including American Illustration, Communication Arts and the annual of the Society of Publication Designers. King is also a musician and his band, J.D. King and the Coachmen, recorded Ten Compositions: New Frontiers in Free Rock (Ecstatic Peace) and American Mercury (Field Recordings). As John King he had roles in Slava Tsukerman's science fiction film Liquid Sky (1982) and Kathryn Bigelow's biker movie The Loveless (1982), in which he plays service station attendant John.
