JEFFREY KENT

About the Artist

Jeffrey Kent was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His studio is in Baltimore, Maryland, where as, a visual artist and founder of the Sub-basement Artist Studios, is committed to communicating through creative expression, and his dedication to community service, ideals he learned as a youth. He learned the importance of sharing his time and knowledge, teaching to set goals and to recognize the possibilities within one's grasp. In 2003 Kent founded Sub-Basement Artist Studios a 12,000+ sq. ft. underground, artists' studios and gallery space located in downtown Baltimore (Best Gallery, City Paper). He was awarded Best Visual Artist by Baltimore City Paper and featured in Baltimore's Top Ten Artist list by the Examiner. Kent received his Masters in Fine Art from Maryland Institute College of Art. Presently, working on his studio practice as a priority, he has offered the SBAS as a venue for upcoming curators and artists with vetted proposals to install their exhibitions open to the public.

Artist's Statement

With unorthodox uses of mediums in many layers of pigment and processes including scraping, collage, oil crayon with very wet acrylics in clashing colors, I convey the disparities of cultural, economic and political ideals in our society. Mostly, induced by the oxymoronic, some artworks while examining tribal identification and its crisscross of connotations simultaneously gives the viewer an opportunity to experience the difficulties of subcultures, for example the struggle of reading a simple word in reverse. In viewing the most recent paintings, which all include a pig and the number one, I investigate society's role in teaching us to be triumphant and achieving financial goals as a basis of life’s experience, as well as, the resulting conflicts amongst our contemporaries that relate to the wealth for the few.