We first discovered Jordan Barker at this year’s Artexpo New York, where his vibrant energy and undeniable talent immediately stood out. His passion for creating and sharing his art is infectious, and his work carries a rare blend of originality and approachability.

Meet the artist who’s capturing hearts and sparking conversations — Jordan Barker.

ABN: Introduce yourself — who you are and what your vision as an artist is

Jordan Barker: I’m Jordan Barker, a self-taught mixed media artist and entrepreneur. I discovered my artistic talent during Covid at a time when we were forced into isolation. It was then that I realized how important touch is to human connection, which is why I started painting with a lot of texture to reintroduce the sensations of touch back into my life. My vision as an artist is to bridge the gap between emotion and material — to create pieces that you don’t just look at but feel. Through layering and texture, I want my work to remind people of the power of presence, even in moments of quiet chaos. And YES, they can touch the artwork!!

ABN: What is your background?

JB: I come from an entrepreneurial background, which has always pushed me to build things from the ground up and follow my instincts. I didn’t go to art school, and I don’t know how to draw — my education came from experimentation and curiosity. During Covid, I began layering different materials and mediums as a form of mindfulness and discovered that art could be a language for what I was feeling. Since then, I’ve developed a large body of abstract, textural works that have been featured on NY1, Yahoo! Finance, The Knockturnal, and Fractyll Magazine and private collections across the U.S.

ABN: What is your work philosophy and how does that impact your work?

JB: My philosophy is that creation should be a practice of presence. Every piece I make is an exercise in letting go of control, overcoming self-doubt, and trusting the creative process.  I allow the materials to guide me and I see the act of layering as symbolic: it mirrors how we build emotional depth as people. That mindset keeps my work grounded and meditative, even when the surface looks chaotic or raw.

ABN: What artist(s) inspire you?

JB: Initially I would say that no artists inspire me as my work comes from within, but I recently had the pleasure of visiting Robert Nava’s studio and speaking with him about his creative process. Entering his space was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in the art world. The sheer magnitude of his paintings and intricacies in the details of how he uses different materials, brush strokes, and even depth of colors was mind blowing.  His work is playful and elementary, yet highly complex at the same time and his backstory is even more inspiring. Since meeting with him, I have been motivated to start incorporating more oils into my paintings, which I absolutely love.

ABN: What is the best advice you’ve received?

JB: The best advice I’ve received is to keep creating even when it doesn’t make sense yet. Early on, I used to overthink what each piece “should” be, but I’ve learned that consistency and trust in your process reveal the meaning over time. That lesson has shaped both my art and how I move through life.

ABN: When you are not working, where can we find you?

JB: When I’m not in the studio, you can usually find me working on my other passion, commercial real estate. I love networking, raising capital for real estate investments, and also helping

ABN: What have you done recently that enhanced you as an artist?

JB: Recently, I’ve been experimenting with oils. I love both the fluidity of oil sticks as well as the depth of color. Using oils has forced me to think more about the placement of paint as it takes much longer to dry than acrylic and aerosol. In addition, I’ve been working with a lot more interior designers and architects who not only like my work, but also appreciate the presentation of it which consists of staged photos, timelapse videos of the creation of each piece and high-quality videos of the paintings allowing the customer to view the depth and texture that otherwise can’t be seen in a photograph.

ABN: Tell us about 2025 and beyond? Where will your creativity take you?

JB: 2025 has been a GREAT year!  I’ve not only expanded my body of work but also garnered several celebrity collectors and followers. My social media presence continues to grow and because of that, I have been selling more artwork and gaining the attention of art dealers, interior designers, and collectors. As I continue down this path, I am excited to see what doors this opens as I continue to create work that reminds people to slow down, touch, and feel — in every sense of the word.

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Jordan Barker is an entrepreneur and self-taught mixed media artist. It was during Covid when we were forced into isolation, that Jordan realized how important touch is to the human connection. By layering different materials and mediums on canvases, Jordan began what is now an extensive body of large-scale abstract expressionist-style pieces. He was inspired to create art as a way to reintroduce these textures and sensations back into his life, which provided him with a sense of presence and calm amidst what felt like quiet chaos. Each piece of art is a practice of mindfulness that Jordan couldn’t achieve in any other way during this long period of isolation.

Jordan has since created what is now an impressive body of work, with pieces already incorporated into a number of private collections around New York City. Jordan also has a passion for giving back and has invested in and advised several startups with social missions he currently is on the Advisory Counsel for the Citizen’s Committee for New York City.

https://www.instagram.com/jordanbarkerart/

This Spring, multidisciplinary artist Evan Paul English curates a group exhibition Inner Excess at the combined contemporary art gallery and tattoo studio Distortion Society (Beacon, NY). English’s work explores the intersection of image-making, spirituality, the body, and the ways in which capitalist consumerism shapes our perceptions of all three. Each artist in this exhibition brings a unique perspective to these themes, reflecting personal ideologies that are often shaped by shared histories and environments. Together, their works form a dialogue that questions value, visibility, and the blurred boundaries between the material and metaphysical realms.

Gracelee Lawrence (she/they) investigates the fragmented, gendered nature of the body by merging their own form with edible plants through 3D scanning and software manipulation. Their sculptures explore the ecological and ethical complexities of bioplastics, offering a meditation on the intersections of technology, consumption, and corporeality.

Similarly engaging with historical and material narratives, Colleen Rae Smiley (she/her) presents a ceremonial apron inspired by the protest garments of Suffragettes. Her work highlights the significance of the table on which the Declaration of Sentiments was signed in 1848—also later used for séances—suggesting the convergence of activism, spirituality, and the enduring struggle for visibility and agency.

Jared Freschman (he/him) turns inward, illustrating in colored pencil a personal ritual of drawing tarot cards upon waking. The recurring presence of The Empress—a symbol of divine femininity, creativity, and sensory awareness—evokes a spiritual practice rooted in self-discovery and intuitive connection.

Kat Ryals (she/her) interrogates notions of luxury, craft, and mass production by blending the aesthetics of 18th-century European Savonnerie rugs with modern banquet carpets. Her hand-built collages, later printed onto velvet rugs using consumer-level technology, lure viewers with opulent imagery only to reveal compositions of discarded, artificial, and dead materials. This juxtaposition challenges our perceptions of value, questioning the seductive yet deceptive nature of commercial aesthetics.

Sam Reeder (he/him) harnesses the allure of neon to explore digital communication and sexual desire. His neon sculptures expose the tension between visibility and secrecy, using the medium’s provocative presence to bring private longing into public space, forcing a confrontation with what is often hidden from view.

Emma Jackson (she/her) employs painting as a portal to an alternate realm accessed through transcendental meditation. Communicating with a non-human entity, she translates their world into visual form, depicting an alien history marked by cultural and environmental crises that eerily mirror our own. Her work serves as both a warning and an invitation to reflect on our collective trajectory.

Together, these artists engage with the intersections of embodiment, ritual, materiality, and desire, revealing the ways in which personal and collective histories shape our understanding of self and society. Through their varied practices, Inner Excess challenges the boundaries between the physical and the spiritual, the artificial and the organic, the hidden and the seen — asking us to reconsider what we consume, what we value, and what we choose to reveal.

To gain more understanding of the exhibition, the author and Distortion Society Gallery Director interviewed curator Evan Paul English on April 8 this year. Here is an edited version of their discussion.

MS:  Can you tell us a little about yourself and your artistic practices?

EPE: Yes! I’m a tattooer and a painter. I explore themes of domesticity, growing up queer in America is what I always put in my artist statement. As a tattooer, I use a lot of imagery found in vintage textiles, and I translate them into tattoos, which I view as an act of reclamation.

Having grown up in Idaho surrounded by these types of domestic art forms, I’m kind of reusing them in different ways, whether it’s through my gallery work, creating paintings inspired by those same patterns, or making tattoos from the same source imagery. I’m very invested in themes of Americana and what that looks like when you manipulate it and rewrite the narrative around what those images represent.

MS: You know I’m a huge fan of your work, thanks for sharing. In the curatorial statement for Inner Excess, you mention that your work, and the work in this show, explores the intersection of image-making, spirituality, the body, and the ways capitalist consumerism shape our perceptions of all three. Can you speak a little about how that plays out in your own work, and why you chose the work that you did for this show?

EPE: Yeah, so as I said, I think tattooing can be a form of reclamation; getting a tattoo can be an act of transformation and a form of reclaiming your own body. So, that to me is a very spiritual act. I think art making in general is very spiritual; making art feels like a form of spellcasting.

You’re creating something new that you’ve never seen before that you want to put out into the world. And it sort of has this ripple effect through your community and potentially even larger than that. So, my art practice is very personal and it’s a way of creating a story about myself that I’m in control of. It’s like tattooing and seeing how my body has changed through getting tattoos and liking the way I look – feeling strong in my body. It’s in essence the same process through painting.

MS: I love that! One of the most compelling aspects of this show is the varied materials and processes each artist presents: we have a 3D printed mobile, a 7 foot figurative neon wall sculpture, a suffragette-era textile banner, an 18th-century inspired rug, a transcendental painting and two vibrant color pencil drawings. There is palpable tension between themes – physical vs spiritual, artificial vs organic – and how the materials exist near one another – hand-drawn vs mechanical, soft textiles vs neon light. Can you speak a bit about this?

EPE: I was interested in the different artists work because they were so varied, but they had a similar thematic undertone. I feel like they all work with these concepts of spirituality in the body and are working in these sorts of consumer level art mediums like colored pencil, for example, or these 3D printed plastic pieces. Neon is something that we interact with on a daily basis, just in a different context. So, in relationship to consumerism, that was how I selected the works for the show.

There’s also an inwardness to all of these – they all have a tenderness and a reflectiveness. That appealed to me, or I guess I resonated with me and my own practice. So, whether they’re illustrated bodies or a spiritual practice like tarot card reading or like in Colleen’s work, the ceremonial apron that has an image of a table where seances were performed, there’s different spiritual elements in each of them. I think even neon could relate to spirituality, like light as a medium. And when I think of light as a medium, I think of stained glass in a church or the presence of light, of color. Light is just very alluring and provocative.

There’s tension between the works and different things being explored, but they’re all very colorful and they’re all really fun, too, which I think ties back into this idea of consumerism, right? Like, why are we attracted to certain things? Is it the materiality? Is it the colors? What about something makes us want to have it and feel like we need to have it? So that was something I’ve been thinking about.

And then the title of the show, which I wanted to touch on, is Inner Excess. I think we all, as Americans especially, consume a lot of information every day through our phones. Everywhere we look, there’s an advertisement. And as a result, I feel like that excess excessiveness on the exterior, on the outward, we consume it, and it kind of becomes our inner worlds, and it changes the way we think about ourselves and things. We’re downloading all this information and then we’re making art, you know, as artists, and it’s like, what do we choose to make and why? And how has the consumerism outside of us shaped the way we think about ourselves and the art we make and what we want to do with our lives?

So, that was sort of the idea. And I think as queer people too, just to speak for myself, I don’t feel like a church is somewhere I can necessarily access my spirituality. The place that I do is when I’m alone or looking inward.

MS: I also access my spirituality by looking inward. This all really resonates with me! Do you find that after working on this show these themes have infiltrated your personal work in a new way?

EPE: Yeah, I’m interested in working in more mediums – seeing people who are very good at what they do is inspiring! Haha, but seriously I think it makes me recommitted to the themes that I’m interested in. When I was curating the show, I just felt so strongly about having each of these artists work here. And that’s a process of self-investigation too: why am I so drawn to this? What does that say about myself and where I’m at in my life right now?

MS: Ah, good point! What do you hope people take away from the show?

EPE: I hope that people have a little bit of pleasure from the show, a little bit of escapism. I think because the work is so colorful and vibrant and fun to look at, I hope that there’s joy. With art shows, it’s like a big party, you’re seeing a lot of your friends and sharing art and sharing passion with each other. I think that the importance of art right now is finding community and pals to share a little joy with.

Inner Excess will be on view at the combined contemporary art gallery and tattoo studio Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, NY through June 8, 2025. The gallery is in the front and is free and open to the public.

www.distortionsociety.com | www.instagram.com/distortion_society

Brothers. Artists. Working together for decades.

An unlikely story and yet, when it’s Einar and Jamex de la Torre it’s absolutely expected. Growing up in Mexico and today living on both sides of the border in San Diego and Baja California, they have inherited their own unique vision of the Latinx experience and American culture. Their work is visually complex and infused with humorous elements exploring art, history, and material culture. Working with glass, resin, lenticular prints and found objects, the brothers create work inspired by Mexican folk art, popular culture, religious imagery, consumer culture, and mythology.

Perched atop a grassy hill overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge on San Francisco’s northwest side, the Legion of Honor is housed in a stately beaux-arts building that beautifully complements the 4,000 years of ancient and European art you’ll find inside. This year, the beloved San Francisco institution is celebrating its centennial—and it’s treating us to a very special exhibition: Mary Cassatt at Work.

Who was Mary Cassatt?

 Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was a Modernist pioneer and member of the French Impressionist movement who’s often dismissed as a sentimental painter of mothers and children. Her paintings, pastels, and prints often depicted upper-middle-class life, showing women at the opera, talking with friends, or having tea. But Cassatt’s art also portrayed “women’s work”—including needlepoint, child-rearing, and domestic tasks—deeming it worthy of serious artistic consideration while her peers were painting landscapes and pastoral scenes from everyday life.

Under the guise of acceptably feminine imagery, Cassatt snuck in subtle experimentation with both the subject matter of her art and the processes she employed to create it. She purposefully called attention to the methods of her artmaking and the iterative approach she took to reach the final product, which the exhibition at Legion of Honor highlights beautifully.

About the exhibition

Mary Cassatt at Work is the first major U.S. presentation of Cassatt’s work in more than 25 years, organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco.

The exhibition delves into Cassatt’s materials and processes over 50 years of artmaking, showing 93 objects on loan plus a group of distinguished works from the Fine Arts Museums’ collection. You don’t want to miss this one!

Get a taste of what’s to come

The exhibition is split into five galleries, each tailored to a central theme of Mary Cassatt’s artwork and artistic process. Take a stroll through the museum with us as we give you a glimpse into each gallery.

Impressionism: Picturing Women

Cassatt’s desire to become a professional artist was met with a lot of resistance from both her family and her social class at large. Nonetheless, she remained intent on developing her artistic career.

Cassatt found her community with the Impressionists—artists like Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Auguste Renoir, and Camille Pissarro—who broke away from traditional French art institutions and pioneered new approaches to portray scenes from modern life, often rendered with bold strokes of bright, unblended color.

As an affluent woman navigating rigid Parisian society, Cassatt focused her artistic attention on depicting the social lives, intellectual interests, and handiwork of the women she called her peers. Cassatt showed her work with the Impressionists for the first time in 1879, making an impactful debut with her paintings and pastel drawings of upper-middle-class women.

Children and Childcare

Even though Cassatt never had children of her own, she took great interest in portraying the inner lives of children and the relationships they had with their caretakers. Because Cassatt poignantly depicted the physical and psychological work involved in childcare for the first meaningful time in Western art history, she quickly garnered an international reputation—and established a budding market—for her images of women and children.

Printing in Color

After attending a Japanese art exhibition in Paris in 1890, Cassatt became enamored with the bright colors, dynamic patterns, and everyday scenes of Japanese woodblock prints. She was determined to reverse engineer these elements in a Western-style intaglio print. The next winter, she created a series of color prints now known as the “Set of Ten,” which drew from Japanese precedents to depict Parisian women’s private lives, from quiet bus rides to nighttime bath rituals.

Cassatt worked closely with the master printer Modeste Leroy to invent a new method of printing in color, resulting in some of the most inventive and technically adventurous works in the history of modern printmaking.

Finished/Unfinished

Cassatt loved to lay her process bare in her color prints, paintings, and pastel drawings. This gallery highlights the artist’s endless experimentation and her desire to document the artistic process in addition to the final product.

The “Modern Madonna”

During the last 15 years of her life, Cassatt became increasingly focused on creating artwork about women and children. This mother-and-child imagery helped Cassatt start a conversation around Old Master precedents—specifically, the religious images of the Madonna and Christ Child depicted by Italian Renaissance masters.

But Cassatt’s ability to create endlessly varied compositions from this theme also connects her late work to fellow Impressionists Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne, who treated the same subjects (water lilies and apples, respectively) again and again.

Event details:

Where: Legion of Honor (100 34th Ave., San Francisco, CA 94121)

When: Oct. 5, 2024-Jan. 26, 2025

Hours: 9:30 am-5:15 pm, Tuesday through Sunday; Closed on Mondays

Tickets: $20 for adults, $17 for seniors (65+), $11 for students (w/ valid ID), Free for youth (17 and under) and Legion of Honor members

Pro tip: Skip the line and book your tickets online.