Ephemeral and enduring

What would be a comparison for JonOne’s painting? Music? The soaring notes of John Coltrane’s sax. A Love Supreme in glorious color? Boxing? What other artist hangs a paint-splattered punching bag in his studio, in front of a vast work in progress? Movement? Speed? A graffiti-covered subway car flashing through a station, leaving a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors in its wake? Or something else entirely? An endless night spent walking under a silver moon? Is his painting rapid, fleeting, gone in the blink of an eye, or is it slow, persistent, there to remain? Short time or long time?

Time will tell The first homo sapiens artists taught us that time is its own master. Which of them imagined, 18,000 years ago, that the graffiti they carefully traced on a cave wall in Lascaux (or closer to home, on the wall of a housing project) would still be there almost two thousand centuries later? A priceless and protected human treasure. And who’s to say they didn’t secretly dream that’s how it would be? So what did a young JonOne dream of when he was tagging the streets and walls of Harlem in the hope of catching a certain girl’s attention? Not Lascaux or homo sapiens. He was thinking about his life, his future, and the chance to break out of what he now calls “zero opportunity”. To free himself from the constraints of growing up in a certain neighborhood or social group. For JonOne, freedom came through painting, progressing slowly but steadily, teaching himself new techniques and building on the successive encounters, enthusiasm and discoveries that were part and parcel of the vibrant, poetic, artistic, political 70s, when it seemed there were no limits to what you could achieve. From underground tagger, JonOne is now passionate about painting. “My brush is a part of my body,” he says. “It takes me into the painting.” Living and working in Paris since 1987, from those early days on the streets of Harlem, he is now a worldrenowned artist. Give The joy, ecstasy almost, he puts into his painting transfers itself like an electric current to whoever views or simply discovers his work. It transports us. Thrills us. Fills us with life and lifts our spirits. It awakens our senses, appealing to both our eyes and our ears as it sweeps us into an exhilarating explosion of colors and shapes, dazzling us with its energy, vivacity and constant renewal.

Tempos JonOne is now 55 years old and has lost none of his energy. He does push-ups on the floor of his Parisian studio, constellated with a myriad multi-colored drips and spots that demonstrate his vision of painting as movement. But as he ages, he reflects more on this whirlwind of painting and countries visited in an endless stream of shows. And takes time out in his other studio, in Roubaix, a town in northern France whose hour of glory came with the industrial revolution. Here, he puts aside his acrylics and his quickfire technique, and works instead in oil, in more muted tones, at the much slower tempo the drying time of the medium imposes. These are his “white canvases”, as he calls them. The moonlit walk after the solar notes of saxophones. A different music. Calmer, more contemplative, more meditative works but still teeming with uncontainable life. “I’d like to die with a brush in my hand,” he says, by way of a goodbye. Interview by Pierre Maillard

BOR N JOH N AN D R E W PER EL LO I N 1963 I N HAR LEM , NEW YORK, TO PARENTS FROM THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, AT 17 JONONE WAS TAGGING JON LOVES ROSANNA AROUND HIS NEIGHBORHOOD. AFTER THEY BROKE UP, HE STARTED TAGGING JON156 (HIS STREET NUMBER) ON WALLS AND SUBWAY TRAINS ACROSS NEW YORK. MEETING GRAFFITI ARTIST A-ONE (ANTHONY CLARK) ENCOURAGED HIM TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HISTORY OF STREET ART AND, AS HE SAYS, “NOT TO CONSIDER MY WORK AS VANDALISM BUT SIMPLY AS ART.” IN 1987 HE MOVED TO PARIS WHERE HE STARTED PAINTING ON CANVAS AT THE NOW DEFUNCT HÔPITAL EPHÉMÈRE ART SQUAT. HIS FIRST SHOW, IN BERLIN IN 1990, WOULD SPARK GROWING INTEREST IN HIS WORK. JONONE IS NOW GLOBALLY RENOWNED AND HAS HUNDREDS OF SOLO SHOWS TO HIS CREDIT.

THE ART OF FUSION

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