Clockwise from Top Left Corner: Out Of Town, Mixed media, 24” x 24”, 2013;
As Tears Flow Down, Mixed media, 30” x 30”, 2014;
Was Paradise, Mixed media, 30” x 30”, 2014;
Zigzag (Detail), Mixed media, 16” x 16”, 2014;
Always Use The Stairs (Detail), Mixed media, 17” x 24”, 2013;
I Should Really Go To The Beach More, Mixed media, 24” x 24”, 2013;
Is This Just Fantasy, Mixed media, 36” x 36”, 2014;
Heading Out to the Desert, Mixed media, 30” x 30”, 2013;
Space to Entertain, Mixed media, 24” x 24”, 2014;
The Artist in his studio: Photo credit, Eric Minh Swenson;
Here In London, Mixed media, 37.5” x 38.5”, 2013
Jon Measures is a British mixed media artist based in Los Angeles. He gained a degree in Fine Art from Falmouth School of Art in 1987. After spending some time in Manchester, then London, Jon settled in Los Angeles in the late 1980’s. He has enjoyed a successful career as a graphic designer, illustrator and educator. Throughout this period he has consistently produced art. Over the past 3 years he has made the transition from working as a designer to a career as an exhibiting artist.
Measures’ work often combines multiple views of the Los Angeles urban landscape. He has also produced work based on various cities around the US and the UK.
His mixed media paintings are made using digitally edited photographs, drawings and paintings that are printed then made into collages on wood panels. These collages are then further worked using acrylic paint, glazes and spray paint. Paint is used to emphasize aspects of the photographic materials to add texture and color. Layering is an important aspect to the work both in the computer and on the physical artworks.
The process is a hybrid between painting, drawing, photography, digital art and collage and echoes the layering of structures and history that takes place in our built environment. The works walk a tight rope between abstraction and representation and blur the lines between photography and painting. Jon Measures is interested in representing not just the physical environment but also a view of the emotional nature of the places and our connection to them. Certain themes reoccur in the work; our sense of belonging, home and community are fairly obvious but also environmental impact and the relationship between man and nature. Urban planning, memory and history are other themes that become embodied in the paintings. The work is both a critique and a celebration of our constructed spaces.