Jaden Dejesus Blango is a mixed media artist based in Durham, North Carolina.
Born and raised on Long Island, D.Blango grew up with regular trips into New York City, where he was heavily influenced by the resiliency of the artistic impulse. Seeing street tags on monumental brick buildings began his fascination with visual art. Following his departure from Long Island as a teenager, D.Blango exhibited his blooming creative work throughout South Texas. As an undergraduate, he presented research on the link between art and the metaphysical in contemporary culture, and joined the COLFA Academy of Undergraduate Research Associates while earning a BFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio. In 2021 he was invited back to New York for an undergraduate residency with the New York Academy of Art as an Academy Scholar. In 2024 D.Blango was selected as the 2024-25 C. Eric Lincoln Fellow of Theology and the Arts at Duke University, where he earned his Master's in Theological studies.
D. Blango's creative and academic interests lie in the comingling of Philosophical Theology, Semiotics, and the Cognitive Psychology of the Imagination.
" The work I create is concerned with the theological ramifications of composition and space. My practice acts as a mode of philosophical/theological inquiry, whereby I engage critically, and holistically, through the contemplative dance of making. The pictures operate chiefly as the “how” of my inquiry, but also – and simultaneously, as an invitation to the viewer’s imagination. By inviting the viewer to “ imagine-that ”, an opportunity for God’s grace to move through the imagination is created. I understand this aspect of my practice as something like ministry to the imagination, and it begins with my own.
In my work, I inquire symbolically into the tension of transcendence and immanence. The work takes on a trinitarian shape, and through the use of water, light, abstraction, and chance, I explore what this tension means for our perception and imagination of the present. By considering God as the hypostasis – the ground of reality itself (symbolically represented as the abstracted background of the picture) I make my first theological claim.
(God the Father)
The figures involved in the picture, by virtue of the figure-ground dynamic, are inextricably linked to this background. I consider this within the framework of my practice as an analogy for the inseparable union of the ground and the incarnated Son. (Son)
The relationship between these two, as well as to us as viewers, is facilitated by the movement of the Holy Spirit, by way of perception (Beholding). (Holy Spirit).
The philosophy of my practice is to offer the viewer an opportunity to encounter, contemplate, and imagine God’s immanence. Operating with this vision, I contemplate the present while holding a reverent awareness of the not yet – without sacrificing one for the sake of the other. I am concerned with their union, and their dance. And in this dance, the kingdom of God is at hand. Paradoxically, I believe it is here, in-and-through the space of the imagination that we are apprehended by God in the realest sense."
- Jaden
Visual Work
Transcendence: Through Visual Analogy
"Effort is grace in slow motion."
Mark Nepo
Theological Writing
Following Footsteps - Visual Art, Depth, and the Perichoretic Framework
Research Paper
Within Christian theology, the trinitarian doctrine of perichoresis (Greek: περιχώρησις) shares with us a reciprocal, potentially beneficial framework for communication. By modeling the non-competitive relationship between the three persons of the trinity – we can begin to contemplate the nature of the trinity in relation to us. In what way does this eternal relationship practically affect our contemporary culture? To use the analogy of dance, I argue that we are continuously and eternally invited into this expressive communication with the divine through the sublime nature of connection. The question is: What does this relationship look like, and how do we join in?
Additional Writing
Public Engagement
D. Blango believes that the arts present an opportunity to foster creative, cultural, and ethical dialogue. For these reasons he has committed himself to active engagement with his community through visual art - via teaching, public works, and community services.
