Johnathan Payne

Johnathan Payne works across drawing, painting, fibers, and installation. His works visualize connections and interconnections, suggesting landscapes, roads, personal histories, and desires. At MAD, Payne will continue his Comic Quilts series in which he deconstructs comic books into strips to create large-scale geometric abstract collages. The Comic Quilts showcase Payne's formal and conceptual interest in deconstructing gender and material hierarchies and associations; the physical works themselves are embodied meditations on the intricacies and complexities of humanness.

Payne holds a BA in art from Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, and an MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale School of Art. Recent exhibitions include: Atlas, Foxy Production, New York, NY (2023); Keeping Score, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles (2022); A Bridge to Uncertainty, Beeler Gallery, Columbus College of Art and Design, Columbus, OH (solo); Threads, Foxy Production, New York, NY (both 2021); and Miss Lizzie’s Lattice with Lex Brown, Deli Gallery, New York. He is featured in New American Paintings (MFA Annual #135), and has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Observer, and Vice. Payne has held residencies and fellowships at Crosstown Arts, Memphis, TN (2020); The Grant Wood Fellowship in Painting and Drawing at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA (2020-2022); The Aminah Residency, Columbus, OH (2021); and The Wassaic Project (2023).