Jonathan Grado

This spring, I was fortunate enough to show work from Dirty Static: Channel 02 at L’appartement 49C, a gallery here in New York City. The exhibition, Fragments in Our Home, was curated by the gallery’s founders Steffie Chau and Olivia Lasa. It brought together artists working across different mediums to explore the tension between personal memory and shared domestic space.

This was my second time showing work publicly this year, following Happy Hour at the Satellite Art Show during SXSW. While Happy Hour leans surreal and satirical, Dirty Static focuses on memory, loss, and layered presence.
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Layering Memory Through Process

For this exhibition, I presented four black and white photographs from Dirty Static. These works continue the thread of the first Dirty Static, a series that reflects on the fragility of memory and the spaces where presence blurs into absence. Some of the images are distorted through a hand-developed transfer method I call misprinting, which deliberately disrupts scenes in a way that feels both destructive and therapeutic. It's also kind of loud so apologies to anyone who's been within earshot of my thousands of attempts.

I titled the printed works:

01. Urgent Waking Thought
02. Heirlooms
03. Neighbors
04. The Purchase of a $6,000 Couch

A fifth image was printed as well, Sunday Flowers Till We Die. While going through the planning and mounting phase though, we decided to keep the installation entirely black and white. It was the right call after seeing them together, as these four memories devoid of color added an uneasiness to the collection.

I was honored to show at this Manhattan installation, but I didn’t have anything printed yet. Each photograph was printed twice: once on Neena Bright paper, and again on medium-weight mylar. Only the black ink was printed on the mylar, leaving the highlights and color information transparent. This second layer was suspended in front of the original print using nails in each corner, an installation approach suggested by L’appartement that fit their space. The result is a visual echo, a memory of a memory. The farther we get from something, the more layers appear in front of it.

Layered Printing on Mylar with Griffin Editions

I worked with Griffin Editions in Brooklyn to get these pieces printed. I’d driven past Griffin every day on my way to Grado Labs for years, so getting to collaborate with them made me not regret sitting in all that 3rd Avenue traffic (I still do, but not as much). Ginte Skvernyte and her team were generous with their time and knowledge, and open to experimentation, which was very helpful. Part of the fun was physically feeling the paper options before landing on the combination that worked best for this layered effect. I probably would’ve been happy just getting to feel all the different textures, but printing for a gallery was a nice bonus too.

Since this was a layered photo installation and we needed to print for transparency, there was a lot of trial and error. Griffin was able to control the white levels that would become transparent in the print, as well as the overall opacity. After a few proofs, we decided to lower the opacity on the mylar by 20%. We also tested a few different papers with varying white temperatures, eventually landing on the matte Neena paper with a more neutral white.

Fragments in Our Home

The night before the show’s opening, a private dinner was hosted by Chef Janessa Wong, who designed a seven-course menu with each dish inspired by a piece in the gallery. The dessert, titled Time Passing, was created based on the Dirty Static photographs. So I had two of them, because those are the rules. Chef Janessa wrote Dirty Static is “Playful, fleeting, and emotionally charged.” I really appreciated the kind words, and made eyes at "emotionally charged" while I ate that second serving. Other dishes included Soft Opening (French toast with blueberries), Cut Fruit at the Counter (shirazi salad), and What Remains (scallion rice with quail egg).

I’m happy to have been a part of L’appartement’s latest show, and a big thank you to all who helped with printing, mounting, and cooking delicious food. I love photography but I love food. Okay okay, you convinced me. I’ll eat more food. Stop yelling.

Fragments in Our Home at L’appartement 49C is showing May 10 to May 31, 2025.