Biography

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J. Jordan Bruns was born in Cincinnati, Ohio (1982). In 2004, he received a B.F.A in Painting as well as Illustration at Maryland Institute College of Art, and received his M.F.A. in Painting at Indiana University. Apart from his current body of work, he is an accomplished landscape painter, spending 8 months living out of his car painting North America.

Bruns has already been in various exhibitions including a solo exhibition at the Indiana University Art Museum, and most recently a solo exhibition at the Pop Corn Gallery in Glen Echo Maryland. His work has been published in Creative Quarterly No.9 in 2007. Currently, he is a resident artist in The Chautauqua Tower, Glen Echo Park in Maryland. He is also a painting and drawing instructor at The Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery in Glen Echo Maryland.

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Artist Statement

I am interested in stationary objects. In particular, stone. Not many things made of stone move, mostly because it’s heavy. Steel is heavy, but we use steel while commuting everyday with planes and cars. Stone on the other hand, is stationary, lifeless, motionless, and stagnant but it’s fused with an abundance of history. Empires are even built with the help of stone. Rome above all, is my favorite. Many a civilization tries to mimic the strength and permanence of Rome. The new empire will borrow blueprints and build monuments that suggest the prominence of the once great empire. I don’t have blueprints. My drawings and paintings develop from spills of paint or smudges of graphite. I start to see the full image as I construct the piece. But civilizations, like Rome, fall, and stone begins to move when the walls and buildings crumble. Stone stirs again when civilizations are built, brick by brick. In my work, I imagine both growth and ruin happening simultaneously. I aim to depict stone as organic, “tired of being stationary,” and it develops energy of its own. The stone is done with being oppressed by gravity. It bursts, becomes light, changes its form, and collaborates with other stones to form structures or vortexes. It has ups and downs, creates problems and solutions. Sometimes I feel like the stone, as I hate being stationary.

Awards and Recognition

2008- Artist in Residence, Glen Echo Park, Glen Echo Maryland
2008- Group Four Award, Foundry Art Center, St. Charles, MO
2007- Bruns, Jordan “New Painting”, Creative Quarterly No7.
2003- Merit Award, Juried Undergraduate Show, Maryland Institute College of Art
2001-03- Achievement Award, Maryland Institute College of Art
2000-04- Trustee Award, Maryland Institute College of Art