Jordan Caywood
I am a visual artist from the Capital Region who works primarily in painting and printmaking. My work is largely driven by emotion and the processing of personal and intergenerational trauma. Much of the art that I create is in direct reaction to my experience of having a parent with severe mental illness. My relationship with my father and the comfort we both have found in our individual artistic expressions has led to my investment in becoming an art therapist. I have found that my career path informs the way in which I produce work. Art has given me the means to cope and express myself in a way words cannot, and it is my goal to empower others to do the same.
My paintings and prints explore fear, pain, mortality, and the complexities of the parent/child relationship. I also use my work as a vehicle to confront historical violence and connect to my Akwesasne Mohawk heritage. In my small installation piece, Assimilate to Decimate, a suitcase is filled with screen-printed documents related to my great-grandfather’s traumatic time at a government funded residential boarding school. This work exposes an often neglected narrative and conveys the implications of being of Indigenous descent in America.
You can find more of my work on instagram @geezerfool
