Jonathan Lyndon Chase creates powerful images of queer Black life through painting, sculpture, drawing, and collage. His vibrant visual language, often accentuated with bold colors, glitter, and rhinestones, explores intersections of gender, race, and sexuality through rich historical and pop cultural references. Invoking the work of Romare Bearden and the influence of collage, Chase’s figures intersect and even merge with one another and their surroundings, creating intimate and emotionally and sexually charged scenes.

bad dream depicts two interlocking male figures against a dark background, framed by what appears to be a bed, with sheets textured in thick layers of black acrylic paint. The bodies overlap and merge; one man reaches toward the shorts of the other, whose facial expression fluctuates between pain and pleasure. The work reflects on projections of Black bodies in the American psyche in order to reconsider Black male sexuality and masculinity.

Jonathan Lyndon Chase (b. 1989, Philadelphia) earned a BFA from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia (2013), and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia (2016). His work has been widely shown, with solo shows presented at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (2020); Pond Society, Shanghai (2019); and the University of the Arts (2013, 2015), among others. He has participated in various group shows, including at Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, Kansas (2019); LSU Museum of Art at the Shaw Center for the Arts, Baton Rouge (2019); Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2018); Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, Virginia (2018); Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia (2017); and Green Hall Gallery, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (2016). Chase’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Bronx Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; among others.