THE CULTURAL CENTER OF CAPE COD

THIS WEEK’S MUSE

JONONE, GRAFFITI ARTIST

Graffiti—from the Italian graffiato meaning “scratched”—has a long and rich history dating back at least two thousand years. Found on public buildings and communal locations across the world, the desire to leave a mark is clearly important to us humans. A modern equivalent of this desire originated in the 1960s on the streets of New York City and Philadelphia.

Back then, graffiti was new and raw. Largely provoked by urban decay and social discontent, it was created illegally and on the run. Today, the perception is very different – although the stigma of causing damage to buildings and property remains, it’s broadly accepted as an art form in its own right.

JonOne—born John Andrew Perello in 1963—is one of the most successful exponents of graffiti art and exemplifies its cultural shift from subway train to gallery. Blending influences from his life experience as a teenager on the streets of New York with modern painting and painters, he has found a signature style. Colorful abstraction, characterized by dynamic brushstrokes, drips, and patterns – discovered and refined on the architecture and infrastructure of the city.

He began to see graffiti as art, particularly the possibility that his work and other’s in galleries were linked and associated. In 1984, he founded the art group 156 All Starz with like-minded confederates, bringing together their passion for painting trains at night and to help forget about their problems, but also to establish themselves as ‘artists.’ At this time JonOne began to visit galleries, engaging in the established art world to feed his vision of what was happening in the world. “I started to take my work seriously,” he said of this time. “Not to consider it as vandalism but simply as art.”

After meeting French graffiti artist Bando, he relocated to Paris in the late 1980s and set up a studio in a workshop of the Ephemeral Hospital. But although he’d abandoning concrete for canvas, his urban freewheeling approach to creativity remained. He was quickly spotted and exhibited in some of the city’s most important and influential contemporary art galleries.

Today, JonOne is considered one of the most important American artists of new abstract expressionism and is seen as much a descendant of Jackson Pollock as of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Remaining true to his early graffiti on the streets of New York, he continues to produce outdoor work, as well as exhibiting in galleries around the world. He divides his time between New York and Paris.

“Painting opens me to myself; it allows me to enter into communication with who I am”

HAPPENING

Eight Tuesdays, from October 10, 1–3:30pm