Jeff Bostic
ABOUT
Jeff Bostic is an artist, DJ, and non-profit youth worker who graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a BA in fine arts majoring in painting and printmaking. He currently resides in San Francisco, where he runs ArtisLifeSF, a nonprofit focused on teaching Transitional Aged Youth a variety of arts and life skills, including DJing and abstract art workshops, event planning, researching city resources, and job readiness skills. Bostic is also a resident artist at ArtSpan’s Journal Building Residency on Market & Van Ness, where he creates paintings, drawings, art pins, and offers DJ lessons. He has participated in various group and solo shows and continues to showcase his work at 1540 Market, featuring guest artists and music. Bostic draws inspiration from a range of sources, including Dada ideas, artists like Jean Arp, Yoko Ono and Basquiat, graphic novels, poems, and his career in non-profit youth development.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Life Emblems: A Study in Logograms is a series of minimalist compositions that use chance and game techniques to create visual representations of words and phrases. Bostic’s process involves starting each work with automatic drawing or random mark making, which forms an identity through the marriage of improvisation and structured composition building. This approach allows for a balance of spontaneity and control, resulting in images that fulfill his curiosity in both. Once Bostic believes the image is complete, he pairs it with words and phrases from his “title book,” which contains poem titles, human conditions, and ideas that he think about in his life. Bostic’s inspiration comes from a variety of sources, including Dada ideas, artists like Yoko Ono and Basquiat, graphic novels, poems, and his 20-year career in nonprofit youth development. Through this ongoing series, Bostic hopes to create logograms that invite viewers to ponder, explore, and relate to them on a personal level.