Jon Fox's Interview with NUNUM

JON FOX is an artist out of Moncton, NB in Canada.  Classically trained at NSCAD in Halifax, Jon’s worked in photo, film and ink but has always been a painter in our eyes. He’s had exhibitions, both solo and group all across Canada and also farther afield in Portugal, America and Japan. But now he’s back in Moncton and will have a new show opening up at the Apple Gallery tonight. (August 23, 2018).
​NUNUM was lucky enough to get a sit down with Jon recently and we did our best to find out what’s behind some of things one of Canada’s most important painters does with canvas and colour.

NUNUM - Jon I’ve heard you use the expression, pushing around colour (or was it paint), before and when i look at your more recent canvases it resonates. The colours in your work don’t seem to be controlled by the shape of the subject matter but rather the contours of the subject and the colours occupy a shared space with them acting in (acting with) some sort of reciprocal autonomy. And yes there is a question in there somewhere.

Jon - Yes I know the line you’re talking about, and it was pushing paint around. However, it was a line I was told by a former instructor that resonated with me, he said 'Don't let the paint push you around'. When pressed on it, he felt many people let the preciousness of the art piece, or their materials, intimidate them. As a result the art cannot transcend the materials. The art will never become more than the sum of it's parts if it is not used as it needs to be. Also, I find it funny to think of painting as if it is pushing paint around, like mopping a floor.

NUNUM - Can you talk about this, I mean is it conscious on your part or is it just something just has evolved over time … what’s going on here Jon?

Jon - It is a conscious thing. I’ve struggled with being too tight with my art approach in the past and the work always suffers. I can appreciate highly technical work but I do not find it as beautiful or as interesting as the more messy stuff. As a result, I’ve made a deliberate effort over the years to loosen up with my approach, application, and technique. This is to avoid an overly rendered, technical, style of artwork. I find the most beautiful works live in the in-between places, the hard to clearly define places, those places where things are still open to interpretation.

NUNUM - Open to interpretation … so then help me interpret. In some of your earlier work you included empty spaces in your compositions, sometimes this was real empty space, like bare canvas but other times it took the form of minimal foreground/background spaces, can you talk a little about the idea behind these decisions.

Jon - I’ve been thinking about those pieces a lot recently, and I have actually been trying to incorporate some of those ideas into my new work. I really like the empty spaces in some of those works. Large areas of empty and negative space I had used mainly as a design choice. These spaces are a way to play with the composition of the image. It breaks up space and can add different tensions to the imagery with which it shares the space. The space, or minimal colour blocks, become a player in the image. It is also my way of reinforcing the fact that this is a painting, complete in itself, it is not simply a representation of another thing. By abstracting the space the subjects occupy it makes the painting thing unto itself.

NUNUM - Jon, let me stop you there for a second, love that, "complete in itself … not simply a representation of another thing."

Jon - Yeah, it is, I mean everything placed in the confines of the painting work in concert to make the final image. I try to keep a sense of flexibility and playfulness with what goes into those spaces. Everything matters inside a painting. This can be good or bad, some things don’t work well together and can detract from the overall image. Sometimes flatness is needed, sometimes more texture, sometimes more or different marks should be made. I may have a goal in mind but the journey to get to that final image sometimes demands a change of approach as the work progresses.

NUNUM - And now its gone, especially in your most recent works, I mean the empty spaces. In your newer canvases the palette of the subject matter and the background are working in a much more obvious concert, not to say there wasn’t a relationship before but now the interplay is very overt. What changed?

Jon - I think that I just tried to go further. To grow into other areas. I would like to bring some more of that simplicity back into my work. There is a certain strength in those designs, an economy of expression that is really appealing to me.

NUNUM - Yeah, I get that, I mean the development and then a feeling, not to return to but to revisit and kind of 2.0 a previous idea with what you’ve learned since the initial release. And speaking of that come and go, I don’t know like 6 years ago up until around last year (2017) or 2 years back, from time to time you’d go severe minimal palette, monochromatic as far as I can tell. And when you did the background went back to empty space again. This is such a departure visually from the background textuality employed in other works (in your more recent works) both before and after these that it’s jolting.

NUNUM - At least at first, but they’re tricky, they look simpler at first due to the single base colour but then when I kept looking, it goes away. All those subtle tonal differences in the composition became more pronounced and the canvas got really deep again. Can you talk a little about this style of work and let us know what’s going on here. Same target different vehicle or are you cooking at something new here?

Jon - I have a lot of ideas that I want to explore and more keep popping up the more I paint. Sometimes, these ideas require several pieces in a series to try and get to the idea I have in mind. These ideas often take the form of a mental-artistic challenge to myself. The idea of the finished pieces will come to mind, then the challenge becomes: How to I get there? The monochromatic paintings were one of those ideas and as I got into them they became their own series of works. I wanted to know if I could make something interesting and beautiful using only a single oil colour for each piece. So, I decided to use only a single pigment for each piece, using the white primed canvas as a background and highlights, so no lightening, here I mean, no white paint got added to light the canvas. The approach is more like watercolour painting than oil painting. Carefully painting in darker tones while leaving empty space for highlighted areas. Carefully adding thicker washes of pigment to build tonal values. I’m really happy with how the final pieces look together.

NUNUM - Yeah, no doubt, they are cool, they got a certain simplicity to them from the hyper minimal palette that is a jarring in a very good way when I juxtaposition them with many of your other paintings. Speaking of other, a few years ago one of your pieces was purchased by a museum in Illinois to become a part of their permanent collection can you walk us through how this works and what it means to an artist when you compare it to a gallery show?

Jon - The piece in the Illinois show was part of a group show. There was a submission and selection process and  accepted works became part of the permanent collection to be displayed from time to time after the initial show. I had answered a call for submission posted online. Different galleries have different submission processes but essentially it breaks down into gallery/collection types. There are public galleries, private galleries, commercial galleries, artist run centres and private collections, among others. Searching for 'call for submissions', 'submissions' and ‘submission process' is the best bet. No matter the show or venue, it is always essential to follow each call's guidelines in order to have a chance to participate.

NUNUM - Jon, cheers for your time, best of luck with the show tonight, know you'll rock it, canvases all sold before the lights go out no doubt. 

NUNUM - If you’re in the Moncton area, Jon’s next show is at the Apple Gallery. Opens on August 23rd with the party starting around 6 pm that night. If you aren’t lucky enough to be around you can always get your fill from Jon’s instagram feed. And of course keep your eyes on NUNUM because we’ll be watching him for you.

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