Resides in Berkeley, CA with his wife Maria and son Marcel Samuel.

Kevan was born into a family of writers, artists and musicians. At 17 he began studies at UC Berkeley, intending a career in math and science. He abandoned those plans after encountering the work of Marcel Duchamp and headed into art.

Still a teen, he journeyed to Mexico City to reconnect with his Latino half (Kevan’s mother was Costa Rican.) His uncle, Alfredo Cardona Peña was a card carrying Surrealist. Kevan’s entire family is laced with artists, musicians, filmmakers and writers.

Of interest:

Kevan was apprenticed to sculptor Harold Paris at UC Berkeley in 1979.

Kevan practices Tai Chi in Berkeley with Master Fu-Tung Cheng. In the ‘80s Kevan practiced in NYC with video artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.

Kevan and Dr. James Hillman spent 9 years working on the links between Marcel Duchamp and Depth Psychology. Kevan produced two separate documentaries for Dr. Hillman.

Kevan produced and designed two plays written and directed by his wife, Maria Jenson. For "Shrinks" Backstage West awarded him Best Set Design for 2005.

In 2008, former MoMA curator and Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley Dr. Peter Selz curated a 20-year retrospective of Kevan's work at Meridian Gallery in San Francisco.

Kevan received a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from UC Berkeley on the subject of  "The Artist and the Urban Imagination."

Kevan has co-produced several films for Hito Steyerl including Invisibility for the Venice Biennale 2013 and Drill at the Park Ave. Armory (2019).

Kevan has worked as a NYC cab driver, as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant, an English teacher, a video engineer, an associate director, director, theater and film producer, and a few other gigs.

Kevan is currently a visual arts fellow at the Lucas Arts Residency Program at Montalvo Center for the Arts in Saratoga, CA

Exhibitions:

1978 Jack Heiter Gallery Hollywood §
1979 Stinson Beach Gallery Stinson Beach, CA
1981-2 Gomelski Collective Open Studio NYC
1991 Thomas Solomon's Garage West Hollywood
1995 Visualize This Open Studio Venice §
1995 ETF 3 Art Forum Los Angeles §
1995 Video Image Web Gallery Marina del Rey
1995 Costa Rican Consulate Los Angeles §
1997 Winner, George's Annual Photo Derby Silverlake
1999 Black Mountain West First Annual Show Los Angeles
1999 Chryssanthou Gallery West Hollywood §
2001 Hamilton-Selway Fine Art West Hollywood §
2003 Galleryjane West Hollywood §
2004 SCOPE LA Featured Artist §
2005 Visualize This Spring Salon
2006-2008 Salon Oblique featured artist
2008 Meridian Gallery, San Francisco (curated by Peter Selz- catalog) §
2008 Jail Gallery, LA, Darkness
2010-11 (with Hito Steyerl's "In Free Fall") Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Picture This, Bristol,         Chisenhale Gallery, London, Taipei Biennial 2010, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam
2011 Berkeley Art Center,
2011 LAMuni Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park, LA
2012 ArtPadSF
2013 ArtPadSF
2013-14 "Transmissions" Marin Community Foundation
2014 Studio Vendome, NYC §
2015 Vessel Gallery, Oakland
2017 Gibson Art Projects §
2018 Gibson Art Projects at PULSE Miami Beach §

 § denotes solo show

Kevan’s works are collected in the Centre Pompidou, The Gerald Buck Collection at UC Irvine and privately.

Notes:

Jenson’s practice focuses on smoke painting - also called fumage by the Surrealists - an Automatic process that Surrealists used to break away from the quotidian. Those artists were addressing a world moving through world wars, atomic bombs and worse. They found doors we need to keep open so we can cool anxieties and traumas, not so different from our world today.

Smoke painting is Jenson’s way of opening a door. He generally works “as if” someone else is in charge. Smoke is inherently tough to control and as an artist he must surrender to this, then painting becomes a flow state. 

Smoke also conjures an ineffable psychic dimension of reveries, dreams and memories, like looking at clouds, often with a tragic twist. As Peter Selz said:

“He knows how to make magic.”