INTERDISCIPLINARY
KARL JONES
Tulsa Artist Fellowship Alum-in-Residence
Karl Jones is a Tulsa-based interdisciplinary artist, writer, editor, curator, and storyteller whose work brings regional history into conversation with experimental performance, publishing, popular culture, and community. Across exhibitions, performances, public programs, writing, and collaborative projects, Jones explores the stories, identities, and cultural artifacts that shape Oklahoma and the broader American prairie.
Born and raised in Tulsa, Jones returned to his hometown through Tulsa Artist Fellowship after more than a decade in New York City. Before returning to Oklahoma, he was an editor at Penguin Random House, where he acquired and developed children’s and young adult books by award-winning and New York Times bestselling authors and artists, including Alok Vaid-Menon and Kimberly Drew. Jones is also the author of numerous books for young readers, including Life with My Family, co-authored with Renee Hooker, as well as titles for Mad Libs and other series.
Jones’s artistic and curatorial practice moves fluidly between storytelling, performance, visual culture, history, and collective experience. His projects include the long-running Karl Marks Children’s Hour, an interactive performance and art-making project whose archive encompasses more than 1,600 handmade paper puppets depicting historical figures, artists, and activists. His performances have been presented at venues including the Hirshhorn Museum and Dixon Place, and he has lectured at institutions including the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.
Since returning to Tulsa, Jones has increasingly focused his practice on Oklahoma as both subject and site for cultural experimentation. He created the Center for Queer Prairie Studies, an evolving platform for exploring queer histories, identities, art, and community across the prairie through exhibitions, performances, fashion, film, lectures, and public programs. Presented in part through Tulsa Artist Fellowship, the project has brought together artists and community members in an expansive consideration of queer cultural life rooted in this region.
Jones is also a co-creator of Goff Fest, a multidisciplinary festival inspired by the life, work, and legacy of Oklahoma-born architect Bruce Goff. Through architecture, performance, visual art, film, music, and unconventional encounters with place, the project considers Oklahoma’s history of experimentation and the possibilities of creating avant-garde cultural work from the prairie.
His curatorial work has included projects and programs with the Gilcrease Museum, Vintage Barbie Museum, Center for Queer Prairie Studies, and Route 66 Commission. His artistic, editorial, and curatorial projects have been featured in publications including Hyperallergic, Architectural Digest, and The Washington Post.
Alongside his independent practice, Jones works with NYU Tulsa, supporting the university’s growing academic and community presence in his hometown and helping connect visiting students, faculty, scholarship, and creative practice with Tulsa. His work across art, education, publishing, and civic cultural life reflects an ongoing interest in how institutions and artists can create meaningful exchange with the places they inhabit.
A former Tulsa Artist Fellow and current Alum-in-Residence, Jones remains an active part of the Fellowship’s studio and artistic community, continuing a relationship with Tulsa Artist Fellowship that began with his return home and has evolved alongside his interdisciplinary practice.
Jones lives and works in Tulsa, Oklahoma.