ELEPHANT

In this piece I wanted to fully break away from the simple structure of a grid. It gets its name from the general shape that began the piece. An elephant in the belly of a snake, a direct reference to the story of The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery.

I make these images of people drinking, couples embracing, and general frolicking about because they’re all things I long to be a part of. Sometimes I feel like an outsider in this world. Reverse side painting, ink-jet transfers and decal-like patterning come together on Mylar to give the painting a cartoon-like flattening effect. - Jeremiah Johnson

THE MULTIPLE IMAGES

In this body of work, the reader and the writer merge, I am my own audience, the work of art has it's own consciousness, the personal and the social are one. I'm searching for a new idea. I have eliminated the central image and instead replaced it with many images organized as one piece. The different images come together to form a kind of chaotic democracy with no singularly important image, and hardly a place for the eye to rest. It is suggested that the artist is indecisive in a society flooded with images.

These works are an assembly of my many interests and energies, and their actual contents (the words) describe the subjects of importance to me. I continually select and inject, into my work, words and images that hold charged references and meanings; particularly, my deep-rooted concerns are the creation of power and wealth, life, personal growth, and tragedy. In addition, my work contains references to my personal heritage, popular culture, and sometimes respected figures in the entertainment world.

I refer to this body of paintings as the multiple images. I want the audience to have to spend time with the paintings. The audience is purposefully positioned to question what relationship I have to these images, and figure out what relationship these images hold to one another. The viewer is not permitted to enjoy one singular image, but must reconcile the image within the context of all the other images.