Erik Jones was born in 1982 in St. Petersburg, Florida and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. He received a bachelor’s degree from Ringling College of Art and Design in 2007. Early in his career he primarily worked creating cover illustrations for comic books and toured the United States showing at different pop culture and art conventions. His work has been exhibited at galleries in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London. In 2015, he had his debut solo show in Europe at Dorothy Circus Gallery in Rome.
Erik’s work is vibrant and colorful, expressing a heightened sense of realism captured in his female subjects, juxtaposed with sporadic mark making and non-representational forms that could be said to mimic geometric high-end fashion. This effect is achieved by using multiple mediums such as watercolor, colored pencil, acrylic, water-soluble wax pastel and water-soluble oil on paper.
“I’ve been on this kick for the last few years of really having fun and experimenting with non-representational forms. I guess it was around 2009-ish. It began with a piece called ‘Shapes’. I have always loved graphic arts and ridiculous colors so this seems to be a natural progression. ‘Shapes’ was the first piece where I felt like I really put myself out there, as in I had a specific market that liked my work and this was definitely a direction that stood out and really captured what I wanted to create. I remember friends referring to this painting as a ‘clown painting’. Obviously having an aversion to it. Never-the-less this piece was a milestone for me.
The rest of my work has been a constant experiment with space, form, and the human figure. Until 2013 I was kind of all over the place aesthetically, with good reason. I wanted to find my voice. And in these last few years I’ve created some of the best work I have ever done.” – Erik Jones (Supersonic Art)
