SC #371, 2022

Acrylic on canvas, sewn, 14"x11"x1"

Courtesy of the artist and Jack Fischer Gallery

I make my work using simple, direct processes: painting colors onto canvas or fabric, cutting shapes from the painted material, then sewing the shapes onto a canvas background. When finished, I stretch the piece on a stretcher bar.

My pieces include elements of drawing, painting, and more provisional approaches like
mending and appliqué. I rely on the physical qualities of my materials - canvas that is stained or marked, with raw cut edges that have a rough feeling - to evoke different associations.

The invented shapes are important elements in my compositions; they can be minimal
or more layered and complicated, depending on where the work takes me. My default
approach is that less is more, but occasionally I recognize that a piece requires more than less, so I follow the direction the work in progress suggests, participating in the discovery and development it inspires.

I work by intuition or feeling, using a sensibility I've developed over time to guide me, rather
than my critical mind. In this way I've eliminated some of the internal thinking, which for me can get in the way. I do my work, one piece at a time, trying to have no expectations - just an open heart for what is to come.

My own intention is at the heart of each piece I make, but ultimately each painting speaks its own language. When I make art, I have something to say, however, when I stand before a finished work, it has something to say to me. And if the painting works, it speaks not in my voice but in a universal language."

@juanitoparker

jonathanparker.com