Jeffrey Colin

About

JP Colin was born in 1960 in suburb of Los Angeles California, USA. The residents were mostly recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America. The community suffered from political and economic neglect, as well as widespread poverty and gang-related violence. He eventually joined the military to escape those local challenges. He later studied different forms of Buddhist practice and has used Buddhist meditation and other related skills to manage Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder related to his duties as a Military Intelligence Specialist/Analyst.

After struggling with severe PTSD for nearly three decades, and the severe mental illness of a loved one, he returned to university in 2019 to study art (after fighting with the United States Veteran Administration to be recognized as “disabled” for over a year), obtaining a BFA in Studio Art from New Mexico State University in 2023. Before graduating with his BFA, he was accepted to the Royal College of Art in London’s MA program in Ceramics and Glass. He focused much of his time at the RCA on refining how he uses ceramics and glass in his mixed media work. The use of a multitude of unconventional materials, processes, and modes of creation are essential for him, as he feels a constant push to continually add new materials, processes, skills and technologies to his “artistic bag of tricks.”

He views his life as representing an ongoing work of narrative art. He defines himself as a multidisciplinary, “Neo-Degenerate Artist” (his nod to the amazingly talented artists who were denigrated and despised in 1930’s Germany) whose art practice is focused primarily on narrative arts creation and arts education. He has been heavily influenced by Surrealism, German Expressionism, Graphic Design, Street Photography, Technology-Enhanced Sculpture, and individual artists such as Barbara Kruger, Salvador Dali, Jacopo Tintoretto, and Otto Dix (among many others). He is also substantively influenced by composers like Philip Glass, J.S. Bach, and thousands of composers and musicians from all genres and periods from around the world.

Having a minor in Creative Writing, he is also substantively influenced by numerous past and contemporary writers. He merges those influences into a practice that traverses the creative universe by seeking opportunities to create and share complex philosophically and psychologically oriented narratives in a manner that is meant to be familiar, but often less than comfortable for his audience.