JD Reforma

JD Reforma is an artist, writer and curator. Across these practices he employs collage and quotation broadly, recontextualising elements of contemporary visual culture – pop music, film, fashion, celebrity, media and advertising – to articulate their influence on our personal, political and emotional topographies. His work spans video, sculpture, performance, and installation, and often reveals the inequities of race and class that intersect across our relations, cultures, institutions, and society.

He is also a humourist, a practice enacted online through various Instagram personae including Keeping Up With the KPIs @kuwtkpis, a meme-based account in which the ubiquitous Kardashian/Jenner celebrity dynasty are positioned as imaginary figures within an institutional critique of the art world; as well as @Shirtney and @BritneySpoke, respectively a style catalogue of Britney Spears, and a repost archive of the various inspirational quotes published regularly on her personal account.

Most recently he has completed major commissions for Hyper-linked, 2020, curated by Isobel Parker Philip, Art Gallery of New South Wales; HI-VIS, 2020, curated by Luke Letourneau, Casula Powerhouse; Don’t Let Yourself Go, 2020, curated by Megan Monte and Josephine Skinner, Cement Fondu, Sydney; and Collective Trace, 2020, curated by Anna May Kirk, Sophie Penkethman-Young and Nerida Ross, PACT, Sydney. His work has been extensively profiled by Broadsheet Sydney, Art Collector Magazine, The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, RUSSH Magazine, Running Dog and Runway Journal. He was a 2020 City of Sydney Live/Work Space Artist; a 2019/20 Resident Artist at The Clothing Store, Carriageworks; and a recipient of the 2018 4A Beijing Studio, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.

Other key exhibitions and commissions include The Fullness of Time, 2019, with Caroline Garcia, Verge, University of Sydney; No Righteous Left Among The Living, 2019, COMA, Sydney; Spring 1883, 2019, Cement Fondu, The Establishment, Sydney; Do You Know This Feeling?, curated by Sebastian Henry-Jones, Firstdraft, Sydney; the 2018 and 2019 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship, Artspace, Sydney; The TV Show, 2018, curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham, Wollongong Art Gallery; Confidently Beautiful, with a heart, for Halò: Bayanihan Philippine Art Project, 2017, curated by Katrina Cashman, Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney, which was also exhibited as part of Club Ate, curated by Bhenji Ra and Justin Shoulder, Blacktown Arts Centre; Coconut Republic, 2017, which was awarded the Contemporary Prize at the 2017 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Arts Centre; and 48HR Incident, 2015, curated by Aaron Seeto, Pedro De Almeida and Toby Chapman, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney.