Rhodes College alum Johnathan Payne is one of three artists recently selected for the Artist Studios Program at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York City. He will be an artist-in-residence at the museum through February 2024, where he will engage the public and work in an on-site studio space.
Established in 1956, the museum documents contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design and champions contemporary makers across creative fields who apply the highest level of ingenuity and skill to their work. MAD’s artist-in-residence program invites museum visitors inside the workspaces of artists and designers for conversation and to gain firsthand exposure to their creative process.
Payne’s artwork combines drawing, painting, collage, embroidery, color abstraction, and weaving while exploring themes of self-conceptualism, interconnectivity, desire, and infinitude. At MAD, he is working on his Comic Quilts series in which he deconstructs comic books into strips to create large-scale geometric abstract collages.
Payne graduated from Rhodes in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in art and went on to earn an MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University. He has exhibited his works both nationally and abroad and in 2020 held a residency at Crosstown Arts located in Memphis. His artwork is in the permanent collection of the Memphis International Airport and currently on view in its recently renovated concourse.
A recipient of multiple artist residencies, fellowships, and awards, Payne has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and the critically acclaimed periodical New American Paintings.
“I’m incredibly honored to be selected as an artist-in-residence at the Museum of Arts and Design. Some of my favorite artists have gone through the Artist Studios Program at MAD, so it’s very exciting to join them in this shared experience,” said Payne. “My studio art education at Rhodes no doubt got me here. My art degree taught me skills that continue to define my studio practice and life today. The program’s emphasis on intuition and self-discovery, as well as its embrace of interdisciplinary learning, helped me define my own interests, aesthetics, and values as an artist. Most importantly, studying art at Rhodes taught me how to see and exist within the world with intention and consciousness.”