James Jankowiak is a painter, installation artist, activist, and educator. Born in 1969 and raised in Chicago’s South Side Back of the Yards neighborhood, Jankowiak has crafted the knowledge and skills honed from his early years as a graffiti artist and applied them to his full-time endeavors. His paintings and installation focus on the role of color and familiar form as a means of communication in our day to day environment. He studied at Columbia College Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago but is mostly self-taught. He is a dedicated teaching artist with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago since 2003, and currently teaches throughout the city of Chicago with non-for-profits such as Urban Gateways and Gallery 37, focusing on bringing contemporary practice to young underserved artists. In 2011, he was chosen to design the permanent entrance artwork for the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center’s youth exhibition. In addition, Jankowiak was recently commissioned to design artwork for the CTA’s newly constructed Union Station Transit Center in the Summer of 2016. His work has been exhibited in the Netherlands, France, New York, Miami, and widely in Chicago, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Roger Brown Study Collection by SAIC, the Hyde Park Art Center, Johalla Projects, and the Chicago Cultural Center.
James Jankowiak 