JONONE

"The subway is a museum that runs through the city."

 

JonOne is an American Street artist known for his abstract expressionist graffiti. While his work betrays the influence of Jackson Pollock and Jean Dubuffet, JonOne began tagging in his youth in New York, drawing inspiration from the early works of Jean-Michel Basquiat. A self-taught artist, JonOne developed a colorful abstract style composed of dynamic brushstrokes, drips of paint, and patterns he creates on city buildings. In his graffiti paintings, there is no negative space: he covers every square inch of the surface. The color emerges as the artist's life force, his palette is rich, lively, tones and contrasts reveal a subtle play of nuances. In a harmonious composition that seems as spontaneous as it is measured, the forms are knotted and unraveled, undulate or straighten. What sets JonOne apart from other graffiti artists is precisely this attention to the agitation and movement of color, rather than figuration. Each of his paintings is an abstract improvisation, the brilliance of which conveys a certain joie de vivre.