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Jordin Isip, or, My Brush with Greatness

© Christine Hamm

Poster by Jordin Isip

Although there’s a term for someone born and raised in Brooklyn, Brooklynite, no such word exists for someone like Jordin Isip, who was born and raised in Queens. I suppose native New Yorker will have to do. He’s young for such a well-established illustrator/artist, in his 30’s, and he has done art for art’s sake as well as the covers of Time Magazine and Newsweek. He now lives in Brooklyn with his wife, also a well known illustrator, and teaches art at Rhode Island School of Design. He’s had too many shows and awards to mention.

I have been a fan of Jordin Isip’s for a few years. I believe it was the ubiquitous poster for August Wilson’s play on Broadway, “Jitney,” that first intrigued me. The posters were everywhere, on every lamp pole, deli window, phone booth. The figures fascinated me because they were so expressive, so moody, and yet so hip, urban and primitive. His characters were like Picasso crossed with The Farside via Edward Gorey. And his use of newspaper and magazine text hinted at depths of meaning -- that each person has become simply a crumpled and chaotic amalgamation of the media, with a thin coating of personality or paint. His skies and earth were choppy and broken up, as if nothing could be trusted to be clean and smooth. I was instantly enamored. I didn’t just love him; I wanted to be him. And so proceeded a year of my attempts to paint just like Isip. You can see my first one below. Eventually, I drifted away from strict imitations of Isip’s style, but I returned again and again to his method of prepping a canvas and providing texture; layers and layers of torn, collaged newspaper under every painting. . . . . . painting by Christine Hamm

This Sunday, I went to my favorite neighborhood museum, PS.1. They were having a special interactive art show with local artists. At first I felt bitter because they had given me permission to do an exhibit as well and then canceled at the last minute, which was humiliating considering all the people I invited to see my work. However, the day turned out to be quite fun.

Surprise, surprise! My favoritest illustrator in the world was doing an exhibit. He was taking pictures of people wearing masks he had constructed. I saw the masks before I saw him, and I was like, hmmm, wow, those like just like something Jordin Isip would make....OMIGOD, Jordin Isip, omigod, I worship the ground you paint on. Let me kiss your feet. I'm going to faint.

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