Figs and Factures features artwork by interdisciplinary artist Jason Lord. Inspired by a lyric from Stephen Merritt's The Book of Love, Figs and Factures brings together sculpture, installation, drawing, photography, artist books, and assemblage to explore the hidden lives of ordinary objects. An ironing board, a timecard, a piece of cardboard, or a scrap of wood may seem familiar, but each carries the histories of the people, materials, and environments that shaped it.
The exhibition takes its title from two ideas. The fig suggests living systems sustained through countless relationships. Facture, an art historical term for the visible evidence of making, points to the marks left by time, labor, tools, weather, and touch. Together, they offer a way of seeing the world not as a collection of isolated things, but as an ever-changing network of relationships.
Rather than offering answers, Figs and Factures invites viewers to look more closely at the ordinary and consider the stories, systems, and possibilities already embedded within the materials around us.
Jason Lord is an interdisciplinary artist based in Durham, North Carolina. He works across sculpture, installation, drawing, photography, artist books, printmaking, assemblage, video, and sound, treating them as parts of a single, interconnected practice. His work investigates how ordinary objects reveal relationships between living systems, material histories, human ecologies, and built environment. Through installations, he reconfigures materials to examine how meaning emerges through relationships, attention, and time.
Lord received his MFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and his BFA with Highest Honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His work has been exhibited throughout the Southeast and beyond. He is the recipient of the 2026 ArtFields Grand Prize and has been an artist-in-residence at the McColl Center, Vermont Studio Center, Hambidge Center, Penland School of Craft, the Peter Bullough Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Greensboro Project Space, and the Scrap Exchange.
A free closing reception is planned for Saturday, Oct. 24, from 2:30 - 4 p.m. in the Pullen Arts Center gallery. Check out the artwork, meet the artist, and enjoy an afternoon of community at Pullen Arts Center.
The exhibition is free and open to the public. Regular gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., and weekends, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Pullen Arts Center is operated by Raleigh Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources and is located at 105 Pullen Road in Raleigh. For more information about the exhibition, gallery hours, or directions, visit Figs and Factures.
