Room with a View, Oil on Canvas, 20" x 16" 2019. Image Courtesy of the Artist.
Cassidy Early: Good Afternoon, Jonah! Let's start this off with some background. Tell me about yourself, where are you from and how did you end up studying painting?
Jonah Hoffman: Hey, Cassidy. I grew up in New Mexico, lots of exploring the wilderness, playing in the outdoors. Growing up I slowly realized my potential for art, at the end of high school I devised a plan to get a BFA, by attending University of New Mexico before transferring to SAIC. When I got here I wanted to move around in other departments, but ultimately painting was fueling me without limits and so I didn’t venture too far from the department.
CE: How do you think your work has changed since you started in advanced painting?
JH: For the past three semesters I’ve been able to charge full speed towards my interests. Throughout my schooling I’ve really been into doing my own things, but they never lined up with my responsibilities. Suddenly in advanced painting all I had to do was follow my passions. In the process the barriers between myself and my work have dissipated. My work is now more honest to who I am and what I believe.
Vent, Oil on Canvas, 16"x12", 2019. Image Courtesy of the Artist.
CE: Besides the goal of Advanced Painting being purely about exploring how you want to work what are your other biggest influences?
JH: I also work in the Studio Lab, so I’ve spent a lot of time in that space learning about the painting’s materials, techniques and histories, and how to build a painted surface intentionally. My studio created a space to experiment with materiality at a larger scale and for more sustained periods, without having to worry about leaving a mess or taking up space.
JH: I don't want to forget to say that the community of artists I have met by sharing studio spaces has been one of the biggest influences on my work. These peers have been a more immediate influence than any other artist or artwork.
Uncovered, Oil on Canvas, 14"x11". 2020. Image Courtesy of the Artist.
CE: Tell me about your current work, what are your main concerns/ themes or objectives?
JH: My time in advanced painting has been a trip down the rabbit hole. I don’t know where I'm going next, but I have some sense of where I’ve been and where I am now. Broadly my work has been about creating a crooked space. Allowing the viewer to perceive the space, where they are in that space, and how their perspective creates distortions. For the past two semesters I’ve wanted my paintings to have a potential usefulness (or uselessness) for a viewer and that's how the objects, alarm, vents, toilets, scaffolding/ ladders, emerged in the work. Lately the paintings have been specifically about response to crisis. Much of the work is about identifying a perspective- where am I in relation to the crisis, what power do I have to respond, and what ready-made ways of responding have I inherited?
JH: Before campus closure, I was studying SAIC’s emergency plans and procedures for a series that was questioning institutional methods of preparation for the inevitability of crisis. Now that the preparation of our institution is currently being displayed in real time, I’m more interested in who and what I am turning to for support as SAIC’s structure falls out from under us. I’ve realized what’s kept me stable are my connections to my immediate family. It's their processes of preparing for the unknown that I’ve inherited that enabled me to succeed at SAIC and have guided me as I exit the school. These paintings of SAIC’s emergency equipment are now useless relics of the institution, but the use of the object comes from its association with a family member and their habits I have inherited. While I still have doubts about their methods, I am thankful for them, and will be giving these paintings to them as the final gesture of the project.
Let's Step Back, Oil on Canvas, 60"x 60". 2020. Image Courtesy of the Artist.
CE: When I see the intense colors and repeating subject they make me think of dreamscapes. Places that exist in emotional and physical contradiction. Do you see them as dreamy in any way?
JH: I want there to be a distortion in the reality of the experience of the work. When I’m working I want to lean into the strangeness of my lived experience and I push the paint to reflect that. I’m not striving to create a representation of the world outside of my subjective perceptions so the painting’s reality is bound to be illusionary. I’ve seen the fire extinguisher, I’ve seen the scaffolding, but when creating them with paint I'm not referencing those specific objects. I rely on my memory and emphasise material inventiveness when building the images. As a result, the paintings start to adhere to the physics of the world I’m building, not necessarily the world you are accustomed to.
CE: How do you use color, specifically in the work? How does it function?
JH: It mostly generates from my interest in the different properties of pigments. I can buy a new tube of paint or discover a new pigment combination and whatever color that is you can find it in a string of my paintings. A desire to recreate an observation of color also drives the color mixing and layering. My color pallet goes through seasons depending on the conditions of the spaces I’m working in and the pigment’s I have available.
(WIP) Emergency Exit, Oil on Canvas, 20"x16". 2020. Image Courtesy of the Artist.
CE: Who are your artistic or theoretical influences?
JH: I thought I’d highlight some of my favorite paintings I’ve seen in the AIC. I'm really missing being able to take a walk in the museum. I remember when Nicole Eisenman’s The Drawing Class was up - her material and technical approach is full of humorous nods to the history of painting, representation, material experimentation. Aeneas Rescuing Anchises from Burning Troy by Hedrick van Steenwijck, the Younger is this crazy small and delicate painting of a really dramatic scene. The concentration of violence inspired my painting Uncovered, 2020. I got to see the El Greco show twice before it came down, it was so good. Each painting had such specific contexts that it was made for. It was fascinating how El Greco inherited technique, remixed it, and passed it on.
CE: Thanks for the great conversation Jonah, I love the work, keep going!
JH: Thank you too, Cassidy.
Jonah Hoffman is a Graduating Senior at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. You can find more examples of his work on Instagram - @hobbeshoffman and on his website, jdhpaint.com