Greg King is a filmmaker and multimedia artist based out of Los Angeles, but he is quick to add that he was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, the “jewel of the Ohio” and birthplace of Muhammad Ali.
King has wide-ranging experience in a number of artistic disciplines, as he is restless and easily distracted. He received his BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute, and ran a small offset-printing business called One Ton Press for several years while living in Chicago, making artist books, poetry collections, and CD booklets for indie rock bands. During his years in Chicago he also led several large-scale outdoor mural projects with disadvantaged youth for a number of Christian and non-profit institutions.
As a visual artist, King has exhibited widely in a diversity of venues across the country and abroad, such as the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC, the Foreman Art Gallery in Sherbrooke, Quebec, the Organization of Independent Artists in New York, and the Butcher Shop Gallery in Chicago. He received grants for painting from Arts Midwest (an NEA Regional Fellowship), the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, and the Mustard Seed Foundation in the form of a Harvey Fellowship. He holds an MFA from Hunter College in painting, and while there he received a scholarship to attend the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland as an exchange student. While at Hunter, he became more invested in digital filmmaking and non-linear editing, using Final Cut Pro to its full potential as an art-making tool.
From 1995 to 2007, King was a member of the music group Rachel’s, and projected original Super-8 films to accompany their live performances. He looks at this body of work of “cutting film to music” as the basis for his sensibilities as an editor and general approach to film and cinematic media. He toured extensively with Rachel’s throughout America and Europe, with special appearances at the Merkin Concert Hall in New York (WNYC’s New Sounds Live Series 2006), the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2000-05), On the Boards, Seattle (2003), and the 2002 All Tomorrow’s Parties Music Festival in southern England. The group opened for PJ Harvey on her 2008 “Is this Desire” tour across the United States.
King has also worn the hat of a film and video projection designer for live theater in New York, working with acclaimed director Anne Bogart and the SITI Company (“Hotel Cassiopeia” and “Systems/Layers”) and artistic director Lear deBessonet from Stillpoint Productions (“Bone Portraits” and “The Eliots”), among others.
He directed, shot and edited the experimental film cycle ‘Rotating Mirror‘, which received grant support from Angels Net Foundation and the Jerome Foundation. His dance film ‘chloes‘ (co-created with choreographer Lea Fulton) premiered at the 2010 Dance on Camera Film Festival at Lincoln Center, NYC, and his recent documentary Our House (co-created with David Teague) received its World Premiere at the prestigious 2010 Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto. Our House has won top awards for a documentary at film festivals, has broadcast deals in the USA and Poland (DOC Channel and Canal + Poland, respectively), and is available on DVD.
In 2010, Greg was contacted by the set decorator for the wildly popular film saga Twilight, to have his visual art featured as set decor in the concluding chapters of the series, titled “Breaking Dawn” (parts 1 and 2). Several art works were selected and hung in the ‘Cullen House’ set, and are visible as backdrop in many scenes.
