J.J. Manford is highly sensitive to the interaction of colors. Rather than paint solid, opaque layers of color, he uses a process similar to the French Impressionists, applying an underpainting that reacts with top layers of color that are scumbled on the paintings’ surfaces. This ends up creating a pulsating, vibratory, almost psychedelic and hallucinatory surface that has a relationship to the subject matter.
JJ Manford lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Derek Eller Gallery and Harper’s Gallery and has been included in group exhibitions at Alexander Berggruen Gallery, and Hesse Flatow, all New York. Manford co-founded the Brooklyn-based artist collective Underdonk, and has organized independent projects that have been featured in Hyperallergic, Two Coats of Paint, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. He is an adjunct professor at Pratt Institute and Borough of Manhattan Community College.