Home / Arts & Life / A Filmmaker and Artist Who Also Designs Clothing

A Filmmaker and Artist Who Also Designs Clothing

Name Jack Greer

Age 30

Hometown Los Angeles

Now Lives In a one-bedroom apartment in the East Village, with a living room that has been converted into a multipurpose studio.

Claim to Fame Mr. Greer’s eclectic creative practice threads the needle through film, collage painting, clothing design and embroidered appliqué. “In years past, I was more worried about how people would interpret that juggling act,” he said. “Now, I no longer really care if someone thinks of me as a designer or a painter or anything in between.”

Big Break In 2007, while a student at Pratt Institute, he became one of the original members of the Still House Group, a buzzed-about art collective based in Manhattan and then Brooklyn. (It disbanded last year.) “My artwork is primarily about individuals, subcultures and microcosms,” Mr. Greer said. After college, Opening Ceremony and Nike asked him to stitch his signature scribbles on varsity jackets and denim. “You could tell me you wanted a picture of a whale smoking a bong surfing and I would render it in embroidery,” he said.

Latest Project Last year, he started a clothing line, Iggy (named after his miniature husky dog), comprising hooded sweatshirts and tongue-in-cheek graphic T-shirts that are sold at Dover Street Market and Supreme. “I hate to use the word ‘streetwear’ because I would love to run as far away as possible from that,” he said, half jokingly. “But I recognize that it’s somewhat of the world that I operate within, so I can only hide so much from myself.”

Photo

A shirt from Mr. Greer’s line, Iggy.

Next Thing Mr. Greer is looking to shop his latest documentary, “Circles in Tompkins Square,” on the film festival circuit or as a DVD at art bookstores. Shot over five months in 2016, the hourlong film is his homage to the diversity of life in the iconic East Village park. The film can also be rented on Vimeo. “I don’t make these things for them to be silent,” he said.

Repo Man Other people’s garbage is Mr. Greer’s gold. Many of his textural art pieces, which have been exhibited at White Cube in London and Rodolphe Janssen in Brussels, are an assemblage of scraps left on the floor by his old studio mates. “I recycle other people’s mistakes and figure out a way to use that range of color, texture and material to reconstruct images of my own,” he said.

Continue reading the main story

About admin

Check Also

Hear the Best Albums and Songs of 2023

Dear listeners, In the spirit of holiday excess and end-of-the-year summation, we’re about to make …