Yung Jake (born Jake Patterson) is an American artist and rapper. His work often explores new mediums and technologies, and spans across painting, sculpture, digital and internet art, video, music, apps, and products. His first well known work was
Datamosh
(2011), which was shown at the Digital Salon of the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

in 2013, and his most well known works are emoji portraits of celebrities. He has directed music videos, including "H.G.T.V." for

Pusha T Terrence LeVarr Thornton (born May 13, 1977), better known by his stage name Pusha T, is an American rapper. He rose to prominence as one half of the Virginia-based hip hop duo Clipse, which he formed with his older brother No Malice, Malice. M ...

, and worked on television shows for

Adult Swim Adult Swim (stylized as

dult swim Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representativ ...

and s is an American adult-oriented television programming block that airs on Cartoon Network which broadcasts during the evening, prime time, and Late-night television, late-night Dayparting, dayparts. T ...

. He frequently collaborates with artist and programmer Vince McKelvie.

Early life and education

Yung Jake grew up in various locations including Bridgehampton and

Sag Harbor Sag Harbor is an incorporated village in Suffolk County, New York, United States, in the towns of Southampton and East Hampton on eastern Long Island. The village developed as a working port on Gardiners Bay. The population was 2,772 at the 2 ...

in the United States as well as

Bali Bali (English:; Balinese language, Balinese: ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller o ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. He attended Bridgehampton High School and graduated from

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...

in 2012.

Career

Yung Jake is most well known for his emoji portraits, often of celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Leonardo DiCaprio, Willow Smith, and Kim Kardashian West. The portraits exist both as digital and physical works, and they have been shown, and sold, at various art fairs including

Art Basel Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel (Switzerland), Miami Beach (US), Hong Kong and Paris. Art Basel provides a platform for galleries to show and sell their work to buyers, an ...

and

Zona Maco Zona Maco (stylized as ZⓈONAMACO) is an annual international Arts festival, art fair in Mexico City. Founded in 2003 by Zélika García, it is held in February at Centro Citibanamex. “Maco” is an abbreviation of “México Arte Contemporá ...

. In 2015 Yung Jake and Vince McKelvie create
Emoji.ink
a free online tool that allows anyone to create their own emoji portraits. He is represented by the Steve Turner gallery in Los Angeles, and the Tripoli Patterson gallery in Wainscott, New York. His 2018 series of paintings titled "Hydration" were described as "glossy UV prints of almost comically amorphous water bottles on steel panels and furniture, adorned with brand logos, nostalgic cartoon characters, and raw elements of angsty tagging via stickers, spray paint, and etchings". Of his art practice he said “I just try to have fun with everything. If I don’t enjoy doing it I don’t wanna do it” and "I think i do mad different things for my sanity. I can’t be stuck in a box just 'cause society makes it easy to do that." Yung Jake is known for conducting interviews via text message, which has been noted as an unconventional practice. As a rapper he has performed at Los Angele's

Museum of Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art (often abbreviated to MCA, MoCA or MOCA) may refer to: Africa * Museum of Contemporary Art (Tangier), Morocco, officially le Galerie d'Art Contemporain Mohamed Drissi Asia East Asia * Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai ...

, the Sundance Institute's New Frontiers program, and

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

. His song
Unfollow
(2014) was described as "somewhere between after-school special and sunshine acid fever-dream", and his rapping style has been compared to Lil' B.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yung Jake Living people Year of birth missing (living people)