JAI STREET
ISSUE 02
BRANDON WHITE
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First off, how are you feeling today? What’s on your mind?
I'm feeling energized and contemplative. I'm thankful for everything going on in my life.
How did you first find your passion and, ultimately, your creative outlet/voice in painting and creating?
My parents showed me that making something from what seems like nothing is not only possible, it's what makes us human. Growing up, construction and design were integral parts of my life. My parents still work in the industry and had me work alongside them at a young age so I could get an appreciation of the work and the materials. Initially, I felt the weight of their business, but now I feel it in my hands—painting these interiors is like working from the inside of architecture out. Artists are supposed to think outside of the box, but I think even to do that you need to be able to see it from the inside and then think around it.
Who are your influences today?
Larry Clark, Stanley Kubrick, Philip Guston, Alison Jackson, Marco Pierre White.
In reference to space, how do you personally feel New York as a place has stimulated and inspired your creativity?
Producing work at night after being out in the city has been an important part of my balancing art here. Being inspired by the people you spend time with is only rewarding when you don't waste that time comparing yourself to others. There's always something else going on tomorrow here.
A few words to describe your work:
Unpredictable, raw, and sometimes a little controversial. I mean, if your art doesn't provoke, what's the point?
How has your style progressed? Take us through '23, and how things are evolving into where you're at now?
2023 marked a shift to larger canvases and a deeper dive into oil paints, allowing me to capture historical and emotional depth with greater intensity.
You were a part of a showing at Rusha & Co.in LA last year. How did that come about? Was this your first exhibition/live showing?
It was an honor to be part of a showing at Rusha & Co., a fine art gallery, and the show was a crucial first stepping stone for me. Selecting the work was more challenging than I thought it would be. There is a lot of stress facing young artists these days, so when I was invited and learned about the theme, I took the invitation seriously. I would like to thank Guy Rusha and Vincent Thorpe for including me in the show.
Describe your work in the Rusha & Co. group show 'Hat Trick.'
I titled the work "What Once Was." At Gramercy Park Hotel the lobby was always bustling. In the painting, the lobby is empty but still full of residual energy. I wanted it to look as if it had been sketched on hotel letterhead, acting as a hallmark of the past while also depicting the presence still felt in the space many years later. I've been collecting more items from the hotel itself, which will be something to look for in future works from this series.
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What does Gramercy Park Hotel mean to you?
The image from "what once was" is almost burnt into my mind from spending so much of my teenage years at Gramercy Park Hotel. It's where I was baptized as a New Yorker. It's not just a hotel; it's where I met the muses of my youth. It's where art and life danced, stumbled, and sometimes fell over—but always got back up.
Looking ahead, where do you see your work taking you this year and beyond? In terms of your work, in what direction do you hope to move?
I am driven to create art that resonates deeply and challenges conventional perceptions. My work explores the complexities of human existence and the subtleties of space and time. Feeling uninspired by the repetitiveness of our consumption, I am pushing to craft pieces that provoke thought and provide incisive commentary. This year, I'm focused on deepening my exploration of these themes, aiming to not only provoke and inspire but also transform how we interact with art. Expect the unexpected —I'm here to reinvent, urging viewers to confront vivid, often unsettling truths.
During the Lunar New Year, people gather with their family and stay for long-lasting dinners and Mahjong competitions. One day, we left QiongLai to visit Jiong’s great aunt in the mountains. During lunch, in between conversations in Chinese with her relatives, Jiong chuckled to us: “Everything is organic.” We savored dishes like spicy chicken, pig ear salad, fried fish with chili sauce, boiled vegetable roots, chicken feet, all prepared in large iron woks over a wood fire, drinking gut-burning Chinese liquor poured from a plastic container. The atmosphere of the house and its surroundings were characterized by an eclectic mix of objects spread across the terrain of this traditional Chinese mountain dwelling. This was a place where Jiong spent considerable time as a child. Many farmers' houses in Sichuan have been destroyed since then. Between 2014 and 2020, the Chinese government undertook the staggeringly complex operation of moving 100 millions of its farming citizens from the countryside to rapidly-built towns. This process often resulted in the forced displacement of farmers like Jiong’s family, destroying their homes, or at least partly, as it happened to the house of her father – which sits a four hour walk away perched up in the mountain forest. Even though half of her father’s house is still standing today, Jiong’s father was part of the citizens asked to relocate. “It then becomes easier to control this more secluded part of the population," Jiong assumes.
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This passage to QiongLai offered a glimpse into the reality of the lives of farmers in rural China. Another part of the series focuses on China’s blossoming techno scene which has been solidified in Chengdu by a group of promoters and DJs that have been opening clubs all over the country. The Chengdu’s ”OGs”, as Jiong calls them, are portrayed in the series, offering an image of China’s nightlife far different from the usual scenes of KTV (karaoke) and flashy bars. Among the dynamic nightlife that has made Chengdu beloved by locals and travelers alike stands a community of ravers with whom Jiong grew up when she moved to the city, centered around a techno club called .TAG. Each Lunar New Year, .TAG founder Ellen Hakka organizes an eight day marathon in her club perched atop the 25th floor of a building complex overlooking Chengdu’s skyline. “Friends from all across China gather for this event. Techno, hip hop, ambient, live performances, massages — and a legendary hot pot on the final day — are served to the ravers who usually come from family dinners straight to the club,” Ellen says.
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As Tell was offered to shoot freely within the club, in spite of its no photo policy, we see ravers, international DJs, and Jiong, partying till dawn. “One evening, one of the ravers at .TAG asked what I thought of China. As I was - and am still - discovering this complex country, I candidly replied ‘love it’. But societal pressure is hard on Chinese citizens, he explained, especially for ravers and queer people, namely, the crowd at .TAG. Threats of closure are constant as the police can raid down clubs and bars at any time, most of the time looking for drugs.”
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China’s recent economic boom has been carried out by intense work, known as the ‘996’: working from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week. However, in recent years, sociologists and China experts are witnessing how the generation that followed the 90s economic boom seem to be less keen on partaking in this model of life. Movements like the Tang Ping on social media – the act of taking a picture of someone lying on the floor as a way to reject the societal pressures to overwork and overachieve – show a rebellious side of the Chinese youth. The club culture, as it exists in Chengdu, revolves around a longing for freedom and the choice of designing one’s life outside of the government’s expectations. “This community of friends around Jiong essentially witnessed and fostered the emergence of the techno scene there,” Tell recounts. “In a way, they offer very different images of what China is known for, or pictured as in Western minds.”
Retracing the life of subjects like his friends or own family has been a study that Julien Tell has been practicing throughout the years. The photographer grew up in Oakland, raised by his Japanese mother and around a community of second-generation immigrant kids like himself. “Somehow, looking at Jiong’s community back home and seeing their tight-knit friendship evoked memories of my own experience growing up in California. I have always been interested in the stories of people who migrated from a country to another, and the relationship one has with their home country.”
Julien's upbringing in Oakland took place in a city standing in stark contrast to the ever-expanding, increasingly dystopian tech haven of San Francisco. His first time handling a camera was during his high-school years, capturing times with his childhood friends. "I started by documenting everything. From moments at school to parties at friends' places to the lives of our parents. I wanted to take an image of everything. Despite the differences in our parents’ lifestyles, sharing this connection with my friends made me understand my own heritage as a second-generation immigrant.”
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In this era, dominated by Facebook circa the 2010s, wielding a camera and sharing images on social media bestowed upon him a certain hype among classmates. Following high school, he went to Napa for a residency program for young artists, which ultimately led him to New York University. “I guess my first serious project was at the end of my final year at NYU. It was a project that focused on the journey of my mother, where we would see her in the places of her routine in the Japan she left, and in America where she resides. It depicted the limbo state that somehow defined the life of my mother in the US following her migration from Japan, where the cultural pressure of her rural town and family were too heavy on her.” This series, 家,ホーム, HOME, shows his mother in the two countries where she had lived, and presented through a highly sensitive lens the odd similarities that one individual experiences from a country to another, although in diametrically opposite places in the world.
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Today, Julien Tell works in Berlin where he relocated from New York in 2018. Since his move, Tell has been working for various clients in Europe - fashion brands and artists commissioning him for portraits. His recent work focuses on the portrayal of the Asian global diaspora residing in Berlin. In it, the photographer gravitates towards communities of artists and producers like Why Be, Lawrence Lee, Nene H, D.Dan and Cora. “What inspires me most is seeing different types of Asian people thriving in their lives and respective industries. Berlin is home to many musicians and artists, and in the city you get to meet a diverse community of talents coming from all parts of the world. I mostly come from a documentary-style approach to photography so I like to portray people in a real and delicate manner, without an overload of effects that I can find sometimes superfluous in contemporary photography.” Julien waits for the moment to happen without triggering it, documenting everything from the casual to the spectacular. ​​
