Start in the middle. It’s good advice for telling a story, and a way into Christopher Paul Jordan’s paintings. By the time you encounter them, their materials have already been something else, and who knows what they might move on to become.

The Tacoma interdisciplinary artist works with salvaged objects, including screens, picture frames, canvas, and aluminum. In one painting from his latest exhibition, fractured patches of blue and pale lavender spread across a salmon-colored surface on a silk screen, its mesh visible through the paint. What you’re seeing feels like a moment in an ongoing process—like an old wall bearing traces of earlier paint jobs, it leaves you questioning what lies beneath every surface, from skin and fabric to concrete and tree bark. What stories are being told, and which ones have been covered up or erased?

A Neddy Artist Award winner in painting and a 2024 Queer|Art Fellow, Jordan has also created public art throughout the region. One of his works is andimgonnamisseverybody, the giant X of speakers installed in 2021 at Capitol Hill’s AIDS Memorial Pathway. The sculpture honors those lost to AIDS while celebrating the gathering places where Black queer communities have found connection and support. His commissions also include Hand Me Downs, a massive bright yellow and orange aluminum hoodie suspended alongside the glass elevator shaft at Sound Transit’s Kent/Des Moines Station—you can take it in as you ride the elevator.

His current solo show, underhand, overhand, backstops, treetops, zaps, turns to childhood memories and sensations that stay with us. Coloring books and playgrounds are among the show’s references, alongside images and interactive objects connected to Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood and the wider Puget Sound region.

Ask Jordan what he wants people to understand about his art, and his answer is as expansive as the work. “Understanding is so lazy! It’s an escape,” he says. “Beyond understanding there’s a place we are called. The work is just a byproduct. It’s me following that call. I’d say people, please don’t understand. Follow your call.”

Underhand, overhand, backstops, treetops, zaps runs through October 30 at the Behnke Family Gallery.

untitled (maafa two), acrylic on salvaged aluminum silkscreen, 2026.

Courtesy of Christopher Paul Jordan

Hometown

Tacoma

Discipline

Painting, public sculpture

Favorite spot in Seattle

Ballard locks (Thanks, Henry Cowdery, for showing me the salmon ladders!)

glare in Faison, acrylic on panel in salvaged aluminum window frame, 2025.

Courtesy of Christopher Paul Jordan

Describe your work in three words.

Molt. Thresh. Remember.

When did you know you wanted to be an artist?

I never knew I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to draw with my friends.

untitled (return), acrylic on salvaged backboard, 2020.

Courtesy of Christopher Paul Jordan

Where do you find inspiration?

I’m obsessed with textures.

untitled (Ora), acrylic on tulle, 2026.

Courtesy of Christopher Paul Jordan

Who do you admire and why?

Right now, Kelly Gorgeous Gucci and Cole Mitchell Johnson are two people I admire. Insanely creative and talented, but when you pay attention, the greatest gift is the work they do to build the space and build the audience. The audience is the integrity.

What draws you to your particular medium?

When I was little, I used to scratch my legs ‘til I bled. Paint is something I can scratch and peel and pick at. Sculpture is a way to pick away at obedience.

Soulma mom and pup on back porch, acrylic and cheesecloth on panel with salvaged aluminum silkscreen frame.

Courtesy of Christopher Paul Jordan

Tell us about your proudest moment as an artist.

We had an outdoor masked rave to open the X sculpture at the AIDS Memorial Pathway. This was during COVID lockdowns. Davida Ingram helped, so at the rave, we had a vaccine drive. It was a moment where the two pandemics were talking, and where the grief folks we lost from both had a place to move. To this day, people continue to have balls and protests at the foot of that sculpture. We’re not alone there.

daytime moon meats morning star, acrylic on drywall, 2025.

Courtesy of Christopher Paul Jordan

Define success on your terms.

Keeping up with my homegirls. Jamika, Kiara, Jaleesa.