Jon Kastrup

I was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1965. I'm 55 years old. I grew up in Miami, Florida, and graduated from the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in 1983. I went to college at RIT/NTID—SVP ’83—and graduated in 1991. Then I took off to Brigham Young University and graduated in 1996 with an advanced degree. After that, I worked in both the engineering and legal fields, but I didn't feel any passion about my work. I got lost. That's what led me to become a full-time artist. Right now, my four artworks related to LGBTQ+ themes combine to depict the turning of the seasons: Summer, fall, winter, and spring. They all show LGBTQ+ couples. Starting with the fall piece, which is in flat acrylic, the year builds up in meaning and texture. “Summer Wedding” is heavily symbolic and carries a strong sense of meaning. “Spring Lilac” shows a clearly deaf person with a hearing aid and emphasized eyes. Then the winter piece is more developed than the others as a mixed-media piece and which combines elements of collage. So the four artworks show a full season of LGBTQ+ unity. I created these pieces several years ago. My work is now mostly known as symbolic expressionism in mixed media.