Our “Pew Fellow of the Week” series focuses on the artistic lives of our Pew Fellows: their aspirations, influences, and creative challenges.

Visual artist Jonathan Lyndon Chase (2019) spoke to us about their art-making routine and the artists, early experiences, and aspects of Philadelphia culture that most influence their work.

Chase’s vivid, gestural portraits employ painting, collage, and drawing to reflect the complexities of Black and queer identity. They have described the subjects of their portraits as “friends and family or my own reflection,” and they create works that consider both the private and public nature of the body, often conveying intimate domestic scenes or rendering life-size figures in large-scale canvases. Their recent exhibitions include Wind Rider at Company Gallery in New York and their first solo museum exhibition, Big Wash, which is on view at The Fabric Workshop and Museum January 2–June 6, 2021. Chase also contributed, along with a number of other Pew Fellows, to Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists, a survey of essays and artworks from contemporary Black artists.