INTERVIEW | March 2022

In conversation with Jonathan Kelly:

The irrationality of art, the taste of colour and the Theory of Everything.

When did you first know you wanted to be an artist? Was painting always your preferred medium?

It just seems to have happened gradually. There were times when I felt a bit unsure about it and despite being fully captivated by it, I thought making art was an absurd activity. There is an element of irrationality to it, but also of belief; it could be described as a leap of faith. So, in another sense, I take it very seriously but, at the same time, I try to have perspective and treat it with a little irreverence.

I find it easier to call myself a painter than an artist. I love painting and its economy, the world we experience is all surfaces and spaces, painting can be any of those things, and has the power to express a lot more. But whether it is art; maybe that needs to come externally.

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Your work is distinctive and instantly recognisable. The texture and use of colour is quite unique allowing the more figurative elements to emerge as if discovered, in a sense both erased and enriched at the same time. Can you tell us about your process and how you developed this style?

I generally want my paintings to have a sense they happened in one go, where the order of layers is indistinguishable. As much as they depict an image, they reveal an image, as if the image has been uncovered, like the paint has just illuminated and made visible the form that has always lain dormant beneath.

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How do you approach colour in your work? Do you have a palette in mind, are the layers planned, or do you approach it more intuitively, “listening” and responding to the painting in the process? 

I think the ultimate goal when making a painting is to surprise yourself. So generally I work intuitively, layering motifs and colours. Some decisions work and some don’t. So some paintings keep cycling around, and subsequently get more built up. You can tell from the surface, some are quite thin and the canvas grain is still visible, and some get a lot of layers and become slick and glossy.

Colours again are intuitive. Although, sometimes I’ll find certain relationships I like, so I use them again. I often think of colours having a particular flavour or taste, in as gustatory sense; zingy acidic colours; refreshing clean colours; rich, bodied colours and heavy cloying colours. So I feel I’m trying to balance that palette/palate.

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Your work often employs the repetitive use of symbols or motifs almost like visual mantras. How do you develop these motifs? Do you see them as stand-alone or as part of a narrative?

I like the word motif, as it shares its root with the word motive. It is both an image or design, and a reason for painting. Iteration of the motifs functions a bit like a mantra, between meaning and meaninglessness. By using it as a kind of readymade, I can use it almost dispassionately, like a stamp, freeing me up; so I can just enjoy making a painting, knowing the image is taken care of. 

It is important for a painting to function on its own, make sense independently and contain its own logic. Although, it has to make sense within a body of work. So when shown together they can form new connections, illustrate a thought process and, yes, possibly suggest a narrative.

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We have noticed there are traces of past motifs in some of the new works. It seems like they are still part of the vocabulary they never completely disappear.

I paint over works, usually obliterating them, but sometimes traces are still visible. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but there is a certain truth to the process.

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Your body of work often involves totemic figures resembling idols or ancient deities and timeless universal symbols referencing the fundamentals of the human experience. Continuing on the theme of universal truths recent work seems to focus more on what is happening inside rather than outside, like you are interested in thoughts and energy in a more personal way but also in an all-encompassing way, the fundamental order of things.

I’ve always been fascinated by the notion of absolutes, the reduced, essential, pure forms.  I like that reductive closed-system thinking. So naturally, within art, I’m attracted to Minimalism, and the whole teleological project of Modernity. But I also see that reductive thinking in religious art, especially prehistoric. They share that search for some essential truth; some indivisible kernel; an absolute. Also, I’m interested in the entropy associated with that reduction, so many possible avenues of the thought are cut off, with a blinkered pursuit.

It seems to me that so far there has been no idea more beautiful than Einstein’s theory of relativity. Reducing the universe to a series of fixed quantities, constants like the speed of light. More recently it’s the quest for the theory of everything, which has very philosophical overtones. I like the expansion and compression between the enormous calculations and complexities reduced down to the simple one-liners.

So with the table of fundamental particles, with each particle named and its properties described, is like a list of ingredients needed for all the matter and forces in the whole universe. It’s somehow calming just looking at it. But I don’t fully understand it, few do, and I wonder, do I need to; does it actually help me in my life?

These technologies that are discovered or devised are presented to us with authority, and their interpretation could help make sense of the world or better our civilisation. But it doesn’t really help us with ourselves, and in the end I have to make my own meaning, acknowledge that it’s probably nonsense, but that it is all I have and it’s my own truth.

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In the last couple of years our personal geographies have changed - do you feel this has affected your new work? Has it led to further introspection within your own practice?

Last year with more time than ever to think, I have made a conscious effort not to. I’ve tried to distract myself as much as possible, to save from existential despair. Likewise, procrastination and overthinking kills a studio practice. I started paintings without really worrying if they’d work or where they might go. And I think that’s key to start making stuff with a kind of wilful ignorance, and as you proceed it naturally distils and refines.

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Do you listen to music while you paint? 

I’m not plugged in as much as most people, I find it’s easier for my mind to wander when I’m not listening to music. But yeh, music is important for making, it can be a huge influence, alters mood and impulses. Speakers for the tasteful to-be-overheard stuff, headphones for the difficult and abrasive.

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Do you have favourite works of art? Or works that you find inspiring?  

Although there’s loads of artworks that I think are great, there are very few artists. I feel I have my lens set very much on the past, so from Crivelli to Stella, with three of four artists in between.

Being bombarded with images all the time, it appears there’s more art than ever, and virtually nothing really excites me. The art world has become so fast-paced and overdeveloped, it appears to filter out almost everything with any risk, vulnerability, beauty, soul or sensitivity, leaving behind an ecosystem in danger of becoming vacuous and desperate.

When it comes to inspiration, it is like what I mentioned earlier, you have to make your own meaning. Perhaps the greatest art may be made by someone without them knowing what they’re doing, and it may never really get seen by anyone. I like the idea of making art following your own truth and not just for art’s sake.

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