KJ Vaughan is a nonbinary painter who disrupts binary thinking by using fungal inspired iconography to demonstrate how opposing qualities can exist together in a tense but balanced composition. While the study of fungi inspires their work, the abstraction of these forms creates the space for audience members, with or without an understanding of mycology, to bring their own narratives and interpretations. Surface and texture become content through areas of sanding, priming, and building up layers of paint. Control versus out of control, intention versus accident, and flat versus three dimensional are all called into question as each painting weaves between and connects these opposites. Experimentation is the avenue through which they explore the philosophies of fungi. The process of building up and degrading the surface of these canvases emulates the ways some fungi facilitate growth, while other fungal species are charged with decaying and recycling dead organisms. Through their paintings, KJ is giving their audiences the space to interrogate how in every seemingly binary pairing, there is a way for the two opposing facts or ideas to be true in the same space at the same time. There is inevitably a third way of seeing, if you choose to look for it.

multiplicity of. Acrylic on Canvas. 60"x48". 2023.