The Artist

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Jake Conner’s Artist Statement, as of October 17 2024

I am a 26-year-old artist and a senior at Radford University. I have been creating art since I could use my hands. I have used art to survive every struggle that I have endured, as it has been with me during my highs and my rock-bottom lows. I am in recovery, with over a year of sobriety. Since finding myself and becoming sober, I have become a prolific painter. I could not have recovered without having art to guide me, and I owe a great deal to those who have instructed me and learned with me at Radford University. I work mainly with oil paint, but I consider myself to be a multidisciplinary artist proficient in many fields, such as charcoal drawing, oil and acrylic painting, sculpture, digital painting, and I hope to add more to that list. I build all of my own canvases and find immense purpose in every step of the process of what I do.

My work often deals with themes of beauty and the grotesque, the sacred and profane.

What do we find to be simultaneously alluring and hideous?  How do we temper our reactions to aesthetic extremes? I aim to explore the relationships of repulsive and attractive qualities in my paintings and other work, as well as the absurdity and unknowns of human consciousness.

My relationship with art is intimately tied to my healing process. When I started my recovery journey, the act of making art is what kept me safe and sane. It was a warm light in a cold and dreary place. It became clear to me that artmaking was the key to sobriety and the only way to get back to sanity. As it led me to a much healthier and happier life, my work recovered and improved with me. A life goal of mine is to start an art gallery specifically for artists in recovery, and to give what art gave to me back to those most in need of it.

Aesthetic extremes.

Oil paintings, graphite and charcoal drawings, portraits, illustrations, digital art, sculptures, creative writings.