Jonathan Windham

Jonathan's art is very striking to the eye—with the white lines against the solid black of the scratchboard. Initially I noticed the starkness of the design and composition, but soon the beauty of the details were revealed. How often do you really have the opportunity to gaze into the eye of wild animals? Jonathan's art provides this opportunity to connect with both art and nature in a fresh way.

Biography Jonathan Windham grew up in the mountains of Northern Utah where, when the weather permitted, he spent most of his time in the wild, falling in love with stuff like: the way crystallized ice looks on the needles of pine trees, and: the green, satisfied sounds in between sounds that the woods make. When it didn't permit, there were always a lot of creative things happening inside the house. He started to draw, like everyone else, at an age earlier than he can remember and continued to draw, probably, to impress his older brother, and later, his pals, and later still, girls, and finally, because it made him happy. Art was generally everywhere and taken for granted as a constituent of daily life. Like food and friends.

Jonathan attended Edith Bowen Laboratory School as a child which was weird, but awesome, took all the art classes offered at his high school, failed everything but drawing and philosophy at university, moved around the mountain states a bit, spent a lot of time outside, and then, in 1995, earned an associates degree in Visual Communications in Denver, where he lived for a few years until one day he was looking out of a breath-fogged, icy-cold window and decided that that was it. No more blizzards. And then he moved to Texas.

Austin to be precise, which is a great town to live in if you're an artist and trying to make a real go of it. Which he is, though he still pays the bills slinging groceries at the market. Currently his goals are to traverse the globe with his lady love; be a better friend, brother and son; raise money to help animals in trouble; transform human organs into flora via scratchboard and knife; and master the audaciously vainglorious art of writing about himself in the third person....

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Statement Currently my creative concerns are three-fold: narrative, usefulness, and exploration of a novel medium.

Narrative I love stories and my favorite art is the kind that tells them or inspires them. I try to make images that have more going on outside of them and peripheral to them than what your actually seeing in the rectangles and squares of space that I've filled in. I want interesting things to happen in people's heads when they see my stuff. I want to raise questions and spark wonder and get people thinking and imagining.

Usefulness Activism has been a strong presence and motivator in my life for long time and has recently become a focus of my work. With the Eyes project, the purpose is readily apparent: to creatively capture the beauty of animals that are in trouble while simultaneously raising awareness of their plight and money for the people working to help them.

Exploration of a novel medium There aren't that many people working with scratchboard and while there are some very talented and notable exceptions out there, most of the work that I've seen is dominated by wildlife stuff and spooky stuff. I am happily guilty of doing both because it's fun and comes naturally, but I have aspirations of taking the medium elsewhere by making images of an unusual ilk and cracking the emotional code of making white lines on a black surface with a tiny little blade.

Read more in an interview with Jonathan on the Artmuse blog.

Exhibitions and Awards

2010 | "Eyes" | The Oasis | Galveston, TX
2009 | "Silent Night: a Benefit for Our Friends with Endometriosis" with various artists | Bird House Gallery | Austin, TX
2009 | "Elbow Grease" with Jana Swec, Brian Daly, Cherie Weaver, Joseph Phillips | Big Medium | Austin, TX
2007 | "Schism" exhibition and self-published book release | Progress | Austin, TX