Downpour by Jonathan Lyndon Chase

Downpour by Jonathon Lyndon Chase explores transformation, queerness, and intimacy through umbrellas, offering shelter, emotion, and connection amid life’s unpredictable storms. Until May 24 Visit: https://www.sadiecoles.com/exhibitions/current/

Jonathan Lyndon Chase’s Downpour hits like its name — sudden, fast, and full of feeling. Just like change.

At Sadie Coles HQ, umbrellas take center stage. They shield, hide, and perform. They separate and connect. Figures huddle beneath them, caught in emotional storms. Water flows across each canvas. It cleanses, destroys, and transforms.

Inside these scenes, intimacy unfolds. Some figures hide. Others reach out. They invite connection or retreat into solitude. Domestic spaces leak into public ones. Private longing meets public tension.

Lightning cracks. Rain swells. Flowers bloom. The atmosphere pulses with emotion.

Chase explores how we move through space. Not just physically, but emotionally and socially. They show the body as a vessel. As something shaped by its surroundings.

Meanwhile, queerness and Black identity run through the work. Not loudly, but with quiet strength. The figures resist the viewer’s gaze, yet still allow us in.

Downpour speaks softly but carries power. It gives moments of refuge. It turns vulnerability into activism.

Through this work, Chase expands Black Queer storytelling. Their paintings hold memory, desire, and resistance — all at once.

Chase lives and works in Philadelphia. Their art continues to appear in major solo and group shows across the U.S. and internationally.