Primary Artist

JACK GRUMAN

insta: @gruman.art | email: gruman.a.j@gmail.com

I am an installation and video artist with a BFA from the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston, MA. I run my art practice out of my studio in Somerville, MA, and work professionally in film and theater in the Boston area. As an artist, my work explores the role of media in shaping our realities, and seeks to model alternative ways of seeing, being, and interacting with the world. I am inspired by traditionally “low art” formats like TV programing, haunted houses, clubbing, and queer camp, and love that it invites engagement from those who find fine art and critical theory to be inaccessible. The goals of my art are community oriented and I often create my work in collaboration with other artists. I have organized group shows at Dorchester Art Project, Artists for Humanity Epicenter, the Somerville Museum, Brookline Arts Center, and the Friend Street Project in Boston, MA. I am drawn to the group-show dynamic because it lets my work exist in dialogue with others, both viewers and collaborators, and our shared social and historical context. VHF STUDIO is the artist collective I run in partnership with Logan Puleikis. The studio is a multipurpose space and organization, combining the professional, creative, and social spheres of art making – and our goal is to establish it as a meeting space for artists to create work together and organize for a better, shared world.

Featured Artist

LOGAN PULEIKIS 

insta: @playkisss | email: loganpuleikis@gmail.com

I joined VHF Studio at the inception of the project,  Haunted Body - Haunted House, which was started as a collaboration between myself and my partner, Jack Gruman. My career exsits within several distinct fields, but I believe there is much overlap when looking at goals. I am dedicated to the healing of my queer community, which I see as a revolutionary act that will happen both through creating institutional supports and through building community -   and ultimately through challenging mental models of relating to and understanding issues we face. I see art as a powerful tool for transformation:  a way to express, to better understand, and to connect.

My artistic practice informs and is informed by the other work I do. It speaks to the social issues that I fight for in my career and inspires me to consider new perspectives. My background in theater lighting and production design translate to how I think about evoking feelings and moments of transition through the buildout of both the cinematic environment and three-dimensional environment. I am inspired by haunted houses, and grew up in Orlando where I helped build them for theme parks, and am inspired by queer, camp, ballroom, and clubbing culture. I want to see the resurgence of art and performance within the clubbing scene, and to cultivate spaces of queer joy and expression. I belive these can also be spaces to organize and create.

My main role outside of VHF currently exists within the field of addiciton services. I am a program coordiantor at a clinic specialized for treating people who use stimulants, where I was brought on to help open the program and have stayed around to provide administrative and clinical support. I began a dual masters program in Fall of 2022 to earn my MPH/MSW degrees, with the goal of building the skills to provide counseling for transgender people who struggle with substance use and ultimately, to develop the expertise to inform policy and practice. I have been involved in trans advocacy efforts for the past 7 years, and recently began a consultant role on the Community Advisory Board for Transgender and Gender Expansive Addiction Services. Outside of these roles, I remain close to my theater roots through my freelance work in technical theater in lighting, projections, and carpentry.