Graduate student talks about his upcoming art show
By Rachel Chaikof
Jason Kofke, a third-year graduate painting student, is holding an exhibition, “Everything Will Be OK,” Saturday, May 24, 8 p.m., at Arthouse Co-op Gallery at 227 Mitchell St.
Kofke attended SCAD-Savannah for a B.F.A. in painting, also at SCAD-Atlanta during the first quarter it was opened, and he finished his last quarter of undergraduate studies in New York through the department’s New York studio program in 2005. After that, he went back to Savannah until he came back to Atlanta this past fall. Thus, he was at SCAD for a total of seven years. “Being in college this long was by no means part of the original plan,” he said.
What is your background in art?
I have always been drawing, even as far back as I can remember. But that is typical of all of us at art school.
Before I came to SCAD, I was working as production manager for a start-up company that helped learning disabled kids learn how to read. I started there when I was 15, helped build the program until I was 20. By 21, I had assembled a production team and had a studio and all the adult-type responsibility that came with that. But some pretty slimy financial stuff happened on the greed end of the company and it went under. That experience is probably a major factor in my winding up a fine artist.
Very few of the things I do and make are not intended to turn a profit, but rather, to convey a way of viewing the world, information exchange, or (at least) a degree of controversy. I never again want to be involved with people who are ruled by what they can get for themselves. I’m happy that I haven’t been around that for the past seven years here in college. Painters are pretty cool.
What is the purpose of holding your show “Everything Will Be OK”?
Making all the work I’ve made in the past three years take meaning through exhibition. Preparing for the future. And throwing a party for my friends who have been of great support over these past three years.
What kind of artwork will be displayed at your show?
Kind of a little bit of everything: an obligitory oil painting, about 20 prints, etchings, lithographs, photogravures, polaroid transfers, serigraphs, letterpress prints, etc. Sliverpoint drawings, hand-made books, video and film projections, weird little slide projections, installations, balloons, condom vending machines, fortune cookies and music.
What concepts are addressed in your artwork?
The idea of the relationship between the past before us and our future. It looks at failures of history to question why and how culture wound up ‘here’. It is also an attempt to manifest some control over the impending events of the future. The themes I keep returning to are hope and fear, potential for success and potential for failure, love and loss, risk and trust. For me, it’s wrapping up three years of experienced events, perceived events, and thesis developed from them.
This is the title of everything I have made in the past three years. This phrase (everything will be OK) articulates a philosophical perspective of my fear and hope for the future as it relates to events of ambition and disaster in the past.
The work focuses on institutions and events rich with optimistic potential of human achievement while tragic with the reality of lachrymose disaster. Some events of human failure are so heavy with relevance they are branded into memory as symbols. I exhibit these burdens of failure, personal and global, historic and potential, as a means to propose this postulate: Why did some events occur? And will they happen again? These are the things that I draw.
This is my method for making sense of a present created by the past. These are my attempts to measure the chronology of the past to gauge the future.The ultimate goal of this thesis is to dictate that future.
For more information on Jason Kofke’s exhibition, visit www.arthousecoop.com
Photo by Brian Steel
