Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, September 17, 2021: Jonathan Gardner, an American emerging artist (#1367)

Artist Jonathan Gardner has always been a sketcher. Today, these sketches are essential to his vast paintings in which the female nude looms large, and which—according to reviews—reference Picasso’s “bodily geometrics” and works by Matisse and Magritte. From his New York City studio he shares how he comes to his trademark combination of surreal and figurative elements, and how he finds influence in everything from John Currin’s provocative paintings to the Memphis design movement.

You were born in Kentucky in 1982. What was home like?
I grew up in Lexington—a nice, quaint college town. My dad was a physician and my mom worked in administration at the University of Kentucky. I have an older brother, who turned me on to many books, movies, and records. We would play guitar and drums together in our basement.

Do you come from a creative family?
Yes, there are quite a few artistic people on both sides of my family. My dad’s parents were both able to draw well, and my grandfather designed women’s shoes for a shoe company. On my mom’s side I’m related to Peter Corriston, a well-known graphic artist.

What did art mean to you growing up?
When I was younger it meant drawing to amuse friends, or myself, often during class in the margins of notebooks. I never got into many comic books other than Tintin, but I liked comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes. Fine art wasn’t something I was conscious of until later, when, as a teenager, I started to educate myself with coffee-table books my parents had about artists like Picasso and Andrew Wyeth.

Were you always going to be an artist?
I got some nice encouragement from teachers for drawing, so from a very young age art was part of my identity.

Tell us about your studies?
I started out at New York’s School of Visual Arts (SVA), and then got a Master of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). At SVA I was really fortunate to be very close to Chelsea in its heyday, and I saw vastly different types of shows at a moment in my life when I was trying to absorb everything. When I was at SAIC, I took a course taught by Jim Nutt called Pictorial Structure and became the teaching assistant for his class.

Where do you get the idea for your compositions?
I arrive at a composition through drawings I do before I start painting. I usually get the germ of an idea by drawing in a sketchbook, and then I use tracing paper to expand and experiment with the image until it feels like it would make an interesting painting. Using tracing paper allows me to combine elements and move them around freely from one drawing to another. I also photocopy drawings to shrink and enlarge them, letting me play with the sense of scale. By combining things that may have come from completely different trains of thought, I’m able to surprise myself and utilize chance as part of the process.

Who are your influences?
One of my biggest influences in the last few years would be Indian miniature painting. There was a show at The Met a few years ago called Divine Pleasures, and it really blew me away. I connected with the sense of space in the picture plane, and I’m fascinated by the world that those artists were able to create in such detail. The way they blend fantasy, mythology, and the quotidian is amazing.

How do you see your work evolving?
I only work on a few paintings at a time, so it’s hard for me to know what I will do in the future. When your work involves inventing the images you paint, creating new work is a little bit like fishing; you don’t ultimately have much control over it. Even though I plan things out, first I have to try and channel something, and then follow where it wants to go.

There’s a touch of the Memphis design aesthetic in your work, is this deliberate?
Yes, I’ve been influenced a bit by the Memphis Group, they had a very seductive use of geometry that I love. In particular, Nathalie du Pasquier is a very interesting artist and, from what I’ve read, the designs that they created were influenced by some of my favorite painters, such as Giorgio de Chirico. I guess it makes sense to me that they would cyclically influence painters.

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