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Johnathan Payne

Adjunct Instructor

Johnathan Payne (he/him) is a visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. He obtained a BA in art from Rhodes College and received his MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale School of Art. Recent exhibitions of Payne’s work include Keeping Score at Tiger Strikes Asteroid (2022; Los Angeles, CA), A Bridge

to Uncertainty at Beeler Gallery at the Columbus College of Art and Design (2021; Columbus, OH), Threads at Foxy Production (2021; New York, NY), and Miss Lizzie’s Lattice at Deli Gallery (2020; Brooklyn, NY). He is featured in New American Paintings (MFA Annual #135), and has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Observer, and Vice. Payne was a Spring 2020 Artist-in-Residence at Crosstown Arts, and was the 2020-22 recipient of the Grant Wood Fellowship in Painting and Drawing at the University of Iowa. In summer 2021, Payne was the inaugural recipient of the Aminah Residency in Columbus, OH, where he lived and worked in the home of the late artist and MacArthur Grant recipient Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

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  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.