Draft:Jason Tetlak

Jason Tetlak (born March 10, 1977) is an American contemporary artist, activist, and founder of the National Mural Awards. His murals can be seen across the country, including in Texas, California, Ohio, and a dozen other states, but most of his work is seen in and around Northeast Florida. His style has been described as bold and colorful, and is heavily influenced by his graphic design background.

Early Life

Jason Tetlak was born in Hamilton, Bermuda, where his father was stationed in the US Navy. They moved back to Northeast Ohio when Jason was just one year old, and that is where he was raised. Jason spent most of his youth drawing and working on various art projects, primarily using simple pencil and paper to draw portraits from photos in his quest for realism. He attended Brunswick High School, from which he graduated in 1995.

After taking a break from school for a year, he enrolled in Flagler College in Saint Augustine, Florida in 1996 to study fine art. Experimenting in a number of different mediums including painting, sculpture, and photography, Jason eventually enrolled in graphic design courses to ensure he could make a living upon graduating. For his senior show, Jason hosted a gallery exhibit “Salon des Refusés” at the Flagler College gallery, featuring large scale pencil and color pencil portraits of friends and fellow classmates. In the Spring of 2000 he graduated with a BA in Fine Art and Graphic Design.

Early Career

Post graduation, Jason lived briefly back in Ohio before moving to Tampa, Florida for a year. He then returned to Saint Augustine and eventually settled in Jacksonville, Florida. During this time he worked in the graphic design field as an in house designer for a number of companies, including the Tampa Tribune, the Hummel Company, and Reddi Arts. Jason left graphic design for 3 years to teach elementary art for the Duval County Public School system, teaching part time at three different schools, Henry Kite Elementary, Norwood Elementary, and Whitehouse Elementary. While teaching, and thanks to a random interaction with someone at a bar watching football, Jason decided to explore the world of documentary film with the help of Kevin Cramer, a friend from college. In a lighthearted attempt to illustrate the differences between a professional athlete and the average guy, Jason filmed Third Down and Forever which was described as “A delightfully funny journey into the delusions of the average guy.” The film follows Jason as he hopes to become a professional football player by working out with a personal trainer at Gold’s Gym and seeking advice through interviews a number of athletes and celebrities including Snoop Dogg, Chad OchoCinco, Joe Flacco, Brian Baumgardner, Dwight Freeny, Dieon Sanders, and Doug Flutie. The film premiered at Sun Ray Cinema in the Historic Five Points Theater building in Jacksonville and was never publicly shown again.

Jason’s temporary teaching certificate ended after three years, and he returned to the graphic design field working as a contractor for the Department of Defense on NAS Jax. This was followed by several years at the Artist Series, a branch of the Florida State College of Jacksonville that focuses on bringing touring Broadway productions to Jacksonville. During his time there, the City of Jacksonville failed to pass an inclusive Human Rights Ordinance (HRO), leading Jason to decide to run for city council in 2015. Jason lost that election, but succeeded in helping to eventually get the HRO passed. Soon after Jason began working at Shepherd Agency doing graphic design and production work for brands like CSX, the Jacksonville Zoo, and UF Health, and continued his local activism by joining the board of the Murray Hill Preservation Association where he successfully ran for president. During his two year term as President of MHPA, Jason introduced a public art initiative called the Murray Hill Mural Project inspired by his experiences visiting Wynnwood in Miami. He also established an annual Halloween themed event called Murray Hill-O-Ween that includes a block party and parade.

Art Career

During his career in graphic design, Jason pursued art in his free time, focusing mainly on continuing his work in color pencil on paper before slowly transitioning into painting on canvas. He hosted several small shows and entered group exhibits, including Art Prize in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but he found little to no success and because of this he contemplated quitting art all together on several occasions over the years. This resulted in the loss or destruction of most of his early work, which he either discarded or painted over.

Following his divorce from his first wife in 2010, Jason again reignited his passion for art and hosted his most successful exhibition to date with a show called “At This Time Last Year” at HAS Art Solutions. Composed mostly of canvas paintings, the show was heavily influenced by his work in graphic design and incorporated hand painted QR codes into the imagery which allowed viewers to interact with the pieces. QR code technology was in it’s infancy however, so much of the public did not know how exactly to engage with the work, and needed to download a specific QR code reader to their mobile devices in order to do so. Despite these technical difficulties, the theme of creating audience interactions would become central to Jason’s work moving forward.

In 2013, a creator competition called One Spark was announced and Jason took the opportunity to launch his newest set of work, augmented reality paintings that featured silhouettes of celebrities like Kristen Stewert, PeeWee Herman, and Jaguars owner Shad Khan, who’s images would only be revealed by scanning the artwork with your phone. Once again, viewers needed to download a specific app to interact with the work, and bandwidth issues caused problems with how well the augmented reality would display, particularly during times when there were large numbers of people in the gallery at once. Despite these setbacks the show was well received.

Street Art

Following a failed run for city council in 2014-2015, Jason quietly and anonymously pursued a very short career as a street artist under the pseudonym “iSuck” where he put up a number of wheat paste pieces and small installations around the city of Jacksonville addressing social issues. The most notable was a severed Native American head created in paper mache that he attached to the Andrew Jackson statue in downtown Jacksonville. The piece garnered local media attention that was also picked in a number of national outlets.

Murray Hill Mural Project

In 2016, Jason started the Murray Hill Mural Project while serving as the president of the Murray Hill Preservation Association. The projects initial goal was to install 4 small murals in the neighborhood, but Jason quickly expanded the efforts to eventually lead to the installation of more than 20 murals. As part of his roll as facilitator, Jason assisted artists in finding locations to paint, assembling scaffolding, transferring their designs onto the walls, and he even helped with painting portions of some of the murals. Based on those experiences, Jason decided to take part in the project himself and paint his first ever mural in 2017, which he did without compensation to avoid any conflict of interest with his roll as MHPA president. That mural, titled “Wall to Wall,” was an extension of the red/blue 3D paintings he had been working on at the time, and featured imagery to represent the history of art from cave paintings, through the renaissance, to pop art, and eventually to graffiti and mural painting.

Jason anticipated this mural would be a one-off project, but after its completion he continued painting small murals along with helping to expand the Murray Hill Mural Project. During this time he also began experimenting with a red-reveal technique that allowed him to hide text in his murals that could only be seen by using a red filter.

In 2018, Jason planned and executed a large 3D mural of the Beastie Boys. It was later recognized as a Guinness World Record for the largest 3D painting, and voted “Best Public Artwork” by readers of Folio Weekly. The success of his red reveal work, and the media attention he received from the world record mural, lead to an invitation from Basel House Mural Festival to paint a mural in Wynwood during the annual Art Basel festival in Miami that December.

Jason expanded his use of audience participation with a number of projects in 2019. First, he partnered with Visit Jacksonville to create 20 individual canvases paintings that fit together to create a single red reveal image. Those individual canvases were hidden around town and teased on social media to encourage people to go out and explore different parts of the city. People who found the paintings were allowed to keep them for free. At the same time, Jason collaborated with NFL quarterback Baker Mayfield on a red reveal mural in Cleveland, Ohio that was featured on ESPN Gameday. Then, later that year, Jason put together an exhibition of new red reveal artwork at Space 42, where the entire gallery was outfitted with red lighting to allow the hidden messages to be revealed at the click of a button. The show, titled “Burn After Reading,” garnered local media attention when Jason announced that, as a commentary on the art scene locally, any unsold work at the end of the show would be burned in the parking lot following a closing reception. The show was highly attended and was eventually voted “Best Art Exhibition” of the year by Folio Weekly readers. The closing reception featured a number of games and challenges for those in attendance who could attempt to save artwork from being burned. The show was even documented by filmmaker Kevin Cramer in a short documentary titled “Here for the Free Wine” which debuted at the Key West Film Festival.

In early 2020, Jason planed and installed a mural in Murray Hill featuring the likeness of actor Bill Murray, which was intended to draw attention to the neighborhood and help revitalize local business. Controversy surrounding the use of Bill Murray’s image prompted a change.org petition to stop its completion, which lead to more media attention and helped achieve the desired effect of publicizing the neighborhood. The mural was later voted “Best in Jax.”

In 2021 Jason painted a mural in Denver, Colorado in collaboration with comedian Josh Blue, winner of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, who is also a painter. Jason often compares the creative process of artists across different mediums, including painters, musicians, actors, and comedians, and draws his inspiration from a number of different sources, including Andy Kaufman who was the name sake for one of his works in the Burn After Reading show.

In 2022, Jason presented an exhibition as a follow up to “Burn After Reading” that he called “Super Wonderful Crazy Fun Time Circus.” In contrast to his previous show where unsold paintings were burned, for this show all of the artwork was given away for free. Featuring more than 50 works of art valued at over $20,000, the show was one night only and held in collaboration with the Jacksonville’s monthly Artwalk. For the show Jason leased an abandoned building downtown and decorated the space to look like a circus with a red and white “big top” tent design, stilt walkers, jugglers, aerial performers, cotton candy and snow cone vendors, live tshirt printing, and just like a real circus, a side show that featured art from six other local Jacksonville artists.

In December of that year, Jason took the interactive component of his work even further by painting the first ever treasure hunt mural. Called “Jacks in Jax.” The mural was meant to engage the public and encourage them to visit and explore the neighborhood where it was painted. Featuring puzzles and clues embedded in the imagery, the mural worked in conjunction with the now defunct website jacksinjax.com, where the public could input answers and receive new clues. Along the way, prizes were awarded including gift cards and certificates to local businesses, all of which culminated in a cash award to the first player to solve all of the clues. The mural included a custom engineered device hidden in the downspout of the wall that delivered the grand prize to the winner. Connected via a mobile hotspot to a custom web interface, the device released $500 in gold coins once a NFC tag was trigger by a user on site.

To date Jason has painted over 60 murals in 15 US States, as well as the island of Bermuda.

National Mural Awards

While visiting different parts of the country to paint murals over the course of his career, it became clear to Jason that there were a large number of very talented artists all over the country putting up amazing pieces of mural art who were getting little or no recognition for their work. This lead Jason to found the National Mural Awards in the Summer of 2022, with the first awards being handed out in 2023.