Jon Key is a queer Black man originally from the small rural town of Seale, Alabama, now living and working in Bushwick, NY. A writer, designer, and painter, his work excavates the lineage and history of his identity through intersecting themes: Southernness, Blackness, queerness, and family. Borrowing from design history and principles, Key’s contorted hard-lined figures are brushed with family histories reflected in polka dots and plaids across the surface of his works. In opaque interior and exterior environments that conceal American histories of pain and oppression, Key layers stories of queer ancestry. Through archival ephemera and artifacts he offers glimpses of strength, support, and resilience.