Jon Joanis

SFA Advisory is pleased to present New Paintings by Jon Joanis, an exhibition of 11 new works by the South Texas-based, Montréal-born artist. The selected grouping is united by Joanis’ devotion to living in sensations, experiences, and memories.

The artist draws inspiration from vistas that are both near and far, such as Montréal and New York City. In contrast to his time lived in the aforementioned cities, Joanis moved to a rural setting during the Covid lockdown in early 2020 and is now located in a small border town in South Texas. This sudden shift away from the metropolis and towards rocky mountains, flatlands, and vast skies reignited ideas and thoughts he had about witnessing the world. Joanis recounts, “these places gave me the space and ‘permission’ to use them as ‘armatures’ for the layering of sometimes imaginary or exaggerated elements: elements of texture that I might find in foods or fabrics and elements of fantastical color that I experience before falling asleep.” The resulting paintings are therefore a hybrid of the artist’s past interactions and dreamlike conjurings.

Since as far back as he can remember, around the age of two or three, Joanis has been guided by hypnagogic images – fleeting and flashing images that occur in the moments before he finds sleep. Silent and not always visual, these sensations are often textural. Joanis shares that often these images are of landscapes in full perspective, while other nights the images are distorted, blurred, or have heightened colors and strange contrasts. While these happenings have no particular name or definition, Joanis relishes in his lack of control in the whole process.

The artist’s vivid and unique paintings are also a direct result of his experiences of synesthesia – a condition felt by Vincent van Gogh, Billy Joel, and others. Deriving from the ancient Greek words for together and sensation, synesthesia is when a stimulation of one’s sense leads to involuntary experiences through another. For example, Joanis can hear music or see words as colors. While Joanis’ interactions with hypnagogic images have become less frequent with age, as the increase of stressors occupy his mind before sleep, he has daily moments of synesthesia.

Hypnagogic imagery in combination with synesthetic sensations manifest materially in Joanis’ paintings, where the vibration of texture gives a sense of movement and dimension. Through layering various media such as gouache, pencil, acrylic paint, and sometimes coffee grinds, Joanis achieves his distinct texturized surface. He reflects, “interestingly, finding new and personal ways of image-making seems to create a new way of viewing the subject itself – forming a ‘mobius strip’ of interactions.” Joanis’ techniques have always arisen naturally and out of the necessity to convey a sensation or idea.

Joanis is well-situated within the history of landscape painters, finding a place between the mystical sensibilities of Charles Burchfield (1893-1967) or the vibrant yet melancholic affectations of Matthew Wong (1984-2019). Like his predecessors, Joanis is matter-of-factly most inspired by nature. The combination of its already innate beauty, along with Joanis’ heightened impressions of color, music, and otherworldly sensations, result in distinctive and celebrated compositions.

Jon Joanis (b. Montréal, 1969) spent his formative years learning drawing and painting under the Canadian painter and illustrator Leslie Coppold. In 1988, after completing a Fine Arts and Design program near Montréal, Joanis had two works selected to represent Canada for a UNESCO exhibition in Paris. Throughout, Joanis studied and performed music professionally as a jazz guitarist, eventually becoming a student of guitarist Mike Stern in New York City. He continues to play and write music, while seriously reacquainting and reconfirming his relationship with drawing and painting. His work is held in prominent private collections throughout North America.