Press Kit
Biography
Jon Sarkin is an American visual artist based in Gloucester, MA. He has exhibited in New York, Boston, L.A., Oxford, Liverpool, and London. His work is in the possession of several prominent collectors, The Centre Pompidou in Paris, The American Visionary Art Museum, and the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA.He is best known for his frenetic and visually arresting images, which mix words as well as images. These drawings and paintings cross-hatch and scrawl their way through pop-culture, rock ‘n’ roll, the mundane, and the subconscious.
Jon began his career as an outsider artist in 1989, when complications from a neurosurgery led to a stroke, which prevented him from returning to work as a chiropractor. While his artwork was initially therapeutic - respite from the havoc the stroke wreaked on his nervous system - he has developed a truly novel artistic voice, as well as a seasoned consistency.
Jon has been the subject of much media attention including GQ, The New York Times, The New Yorker, BBC, and The Discovery Channel. He was the subject of a biography, Shadows Bright as Glass, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Amy Ellis Nutt.
Jon’s projects, past and current, include:
- The cover for the Guster album "Easy Wonderful", and the video for the Guster song "Do You Love Me"
- Big Boy Art, a collaboration between Jon and photographer Paul Cary Goldberg
- The design for a hand-woven contemporary rug, woven in Nepal, for Landry & Arcari
- Several successful collections of non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
- A commissioned mural for the Boston-area advertising firm Mullen
- Unchained Brain, an hour-long live show based on his experiences surrounding his stroke
Currently, Jon is working on photo-documenting and digitizing his entire collection of artwork, which is estimated to be in the low five-figures in volume.
Artwork
