In our latest edition of Meet the Artist, we sit down with J. Brian following the commission of a custom piece for the opening of our West Village store in New York City. What began as a collaboration became a conversation around shared principles: presence over perfection and creating work meant to live with people over time. From controlled chaos and quiet ritual to fatherhood, Mendez reflects on making art not meant to remain pristine, but to witness a life.
Q: Much of Kinn is rooted in the idea of heirlooms, objects that carry emotional weight and are meant to live with someone for decades. When you think about your paintings leaving the studio, how do you imagine them aging alongside a person’s life?
I love that question.
When a painting leaves the studio, it’s a little bittersweet. I’ve lived with it, stared at it at different times of day, and danced with it. But I don’t see it as “finished” in a fixed way, I see it as beginning a second life.
Ideally, it becomes part of someone’s everyday rhythm. It catches the morning light in the kitchen. It hangs quietly in a hallway and witnesses family, celebrations, loss, growth. Over time, it absorbs context. The meaning shifts. The colors might soften slightly, the frame might pick up wear. All of that feels beautiful to me.
I don’t make work to feel pristine forever. I like the idea of it aging the way a good table or a jacket does meant to gain history. If someone looks at a painting of mine ten or twenty years from now and it reminds them of who they were when they first brought it home, or how their life has changed since, that’s the real heirloom aspect for me.
It’s less about preservation and more about presence. I want the work to live with people, not just be looked at.
Q: Your work balances what you’ve described as “controlled chaos” as energy without overwhelm. Kinn approaches design similarly: refined, but never sterile. How do you personally know when a piece has reached that point of balance?
That “controlled chaos” line is something I come back to a lot, because it really is a feeling more than a formula.
For me, balance happens when the painting still has a pulse, but it’s not yelling anymore.
There’s usually a phase where it feels a little wild where marks are competing, colors pushing too hard, and textures stacking up. I let that happen. I don’t try to tame it too early. But at some point, I start pulling things back. Maybe I mute a color, soften an edge, paint over a section that feels like it’s trying to steal the whole conversation.
I know it’s there when nothing is begging for attention, but everything feels alive.
If I walk past it and it feels calm but not flat, that’s usually the moment. It should hold energy, but in a way that draws you in slowly instead of overwhelming you. I want someone to be able to sit with it and keep discovering small movements, small tensions, without feeling visually exhausted.
Sometimes it’s also physical. I’ll feel myself wanting to add one more mark. If I can resist that urge, that’s usually a sign it’s done. The balance is often in what I choose not to do.
It’s refined, but still breathing. That’s the sweet spot for me.
Q: You’ve spoken about painting as both ritual and choreography, a kind of dialogue between you and the canvas. Are there rituals in your creative process that feel essential, almost protective, in the way they anchor the final work?
Yeah, definitely. I think “protective” is actually the right word.
I’m not overly precious about my process, but there are a few quiet rituals that help me get out of my own head. I usually start in silence. Before music, before my phone, before anything external. I’ll just sit with the blank canvas for a minute. It sounds simple, but that pause matters. It sets the tone. It makes the first mark feel intentional instead of reactive.
Spending time in nature is also a big one for me. Even just a walk with no headphones, no agenda. Paying attention to light, texture, wind, the way things grow in imperfect patterns. That resets my nervous system. A lot of what looks like “controlled chaos” in my work probably starts there. Nature is layered and unpredictable, but it’s never overwhelming. Being outside reminds me how to trust that balance.
And then there’s repetition. Certain gestures show up in my work over and over—layering, sanding back, reworking edges. That rhythm becomes meditative. It’s almost like muscle memory takes over and my mind can quiet down. That’s when the real dialogue with the canvas starts to happen.
The rituals don’t make the work precious, but they do create a container for it. They anchor me. And I think you can feel that steadiness in the final piece, even if you don’t know what happened behind the scenes.
Q: Kinn believes that taste isn’t about trend, but about self-trust and lived experience. From furniture dealing to painting to building a home that reflects your values, how has your definition of ‘good taste’ evolved over time?
That idea of taste being tied to self-trust really resonates with me.
From my furniture-dealing days I think “good taste” meant knowing what was desirable. Knowing the right designers, the right eras, the right references. There was a thrill in spotting something rare or historically important. Taste felt a little external, like being fluent in a certain visual language. Over time, that shifted.
Now, good taste feels quieter. It’s less about impressing anyone and more about alignment. Does this piece feel honest? Does it reflect how I actually live? Does it age well not just physically, but emotionally?
Building a home that reflects my values changed things a lot. You start to realize you’re the one waking up with these objects every day. You’re the one moving through the space. So it stops being about what photographs well or what signals something to other people. It becomes about what feels grounding, what holds memory, what makes you slow down.
With painting, it’s similar. I don’t chase what’s trending visually. If anything, I’ve gotten more comfortable making work that feels slightly out of step. Good taste, to me now, is restraint when restraint is needed. Boldness when it’s honest. And most of all, trusting your instinct even when it doesn’t fit neatly into a category.
It’s less about being right, and more about being true.
Q: Many of your collectors place your work in the most intimate spaces of their homes—above beds, dining tables, places of gathering. What responsibility do you feel, if any, knowing your work becomes part of someone’s daily rituals and memories?
Yeah, I think about that a lot actually.
When someone chooses to live with a piece of my work in a space like their bedroom or dining room, that’s deeply personal. Those are the places where life really unfolds — quiet mornings, shared meals, late-night conversations, everyday moments that end up meaning everything. Knowing my work is present for that is something I really respect.
I don’t feel a burden from it, but I do feel a responsibility to be sincere. I never want to create just to impress or decorate. If the work is going to sit in someone’s daily line of sight, it has to have depth. It has to carry intention. I want it to feel like it has a pulse — something steady that people can return to again and again.
There’s also something beautiful about the fact that the meaning shifts over time. A painting might hit one way the day it’s installed, and completely differently five years later after someone has lived more life in front of it. I love that. It becomes a quiet companion.
Ultimately, I feel gratitude more than anything. The idea that something I made in solitude becomes part of someone else’s rituals and memories which feels powerful. It makes me create with a little more care and a lot more heart.
Q: When you’re not painting, what’s something small and ordinary that brings you an outsized amount of calm or joy lately?
Honestly, right now it’s not something small at all.
My son was born on January 31st, and fatherhood has completely shifted my world. It’s hard to even put into words what that’s been like. Everything feels bigger, softer, more vivid. I feel like I’m experiencing life again for the first time. The light in the room, the quiet in the early morning, even the rhythm of breathing. It’s like my senses have been recalibrated.
There’s something about holding him that just stops everything else. The noise, the deadlines, the outside world, it all fades. Time moves differently. I’ve always paid attention to subtle moments as an artist, but this feels deeper than that. It’s not observation. it’s presence.
Watching him sleep, feeling his tiny hand wrap around my finger, hearing those new little sounds he makes, it’s overwhelming in the best way. There’s this constant mix of awe and gratitude. It’s grounding and expansive at the same time.
Fatherhood, even in these early days, has already been amazing. It’s cracked me open emotionally in ways I didn’t expect. I feel more tender, more aware, more alive. If anything is bringing me calm and joy lately, it’s that. And it’s not small at all. It’s everything.
Q: If you weren’t allowed to paint for a year—but still had to create somehow—what do you think that outlet would be and why?
That’s a tough one, but I think I’d still find a way to build worlds, but just differently.
If I wasn’t allowed to paint for a year, I’d probably step into a role as a curator or creative director. I’m really drawn to the idea of shaping experiences and not just making the work, but orchestrating how it’s seen, felt, and understood.
There’s something powerful about bringing together artists, objects, space, light, sound and creating a cohesive emotional atmosphere.
As a curator, I think I’d focus on storytelling. Placing works in conversation with each other. Thinking about pacing, tension, softness, contrast. It’s similar to composing a painting, just on a larger scale. Instead of brushstrokes, you’re working with people and perspectives.
As a creative director, I’d be interested in building visual identities that feel soulful and intentional. Whether it’s for a brand, a space, or a cultural project, I’d want it to feel layered and honest, not just aesthetic for the sake of aesthetics.
At the core, I don’t think I could ever stop creating. Even if you take away the canvas, the instinct to shape emotion and environment is still there. I’d just channel it into constructing experiences instead of paintings.
Stop by our West Village store to check out his work.
Photography by Julian Edward
Art by Jereme Brian