Jonathan Beer Painting

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1 Jonathan Beer Painting Long May You Run I,, Oil on paper, 12.5 x 15.5

2 Untitled (Memory Study #4) Oil on canvas 7 x 10 Untitled (Memory Study #2) Oil on canvas 6 x 9

3 Pontifex III (2nd Law) Oil on Panel 24 x 48 Storm Inscription 2009 Oil on Canvas 14 x 28

4 Untitled (Memory Study #5) Oil on canvas 6 x 16 Untitled (Memory Study #6) Oil on paper 15 x 22

5 Headwaters/Delta Study #2 Oil on paper 7 x 7 Headwaters/Delta Study #3 Oil on paper 7 x 7

6 Longitudal Memory Slice 2009 Oil on Canvas 28 x 24 Phenomenon(Translation) 2009 Oil on Panel 12 x 9

7 Noumena(Cognition) 2009 Oil on Canvas 9 x 12 Origin of the Necessary Cycles Oil on Canvas 12 x 12

8 Untitled (Memory Study #7) Oil on paper 15 x 22 Untitled (Memory Study #10) Oil on paper 15 x 22

9 Noumena(Cognition) 2009 Oil on Canvas 9 x 12 Untitled (Memory Study #8) Oil on paper 15 x 22

10 Jonathan Beer Commentary The visual imagination is a way that artists can conduct mind experiments using themselves and the world as subjects. Art becomes a method of testing hypotheses about the nature of reality and the validity of one s perceptions. The paintings of Jonathan Beer take as their purview the interior world of mental cognition and exterior, observable reality. He posits that human beings are an interface between these two domains. Beer s work sees the mind and the natural world as parallel systems which function similarly. His paintings and drawings are openly speculative, stretching the real into the realms of the fantastic. The intent is to challenge the seamless surface of reality with intimations of another order of knowing. In the earlier of Beer s two recent bodies of work, this approach becomes allegorical, using elements of landscape painting and of the built world. In the Pontifex paintings great structures machined arcs bearing whole land forms float against dramatically lit cloud-filled skies. These suspended landscapes are supported by splintering scaffolding, as if a gigantic set designer had pulled up his handiwork and hung it against a painted backdrop of the sky. In other related works, the sense of disruption and violence are equally evident. Cataclysms are everywhere as the supporting arcs and the land itself break apart, volcanoes and fire erupt, and cities deconstruct as dark storms gather. This apocalyptic vision seems to suggest that the images destructive energy equals the power of mental cognition to hold reality together. In Long May You Run, the later of Beer s two recent groups of work, is in some ways parallel in concept to the earlier work, while distinct in its imagery. Beer has used a variety of interiors to create new, synthetic spaces. This imaginal architecture at first appears fragmentary in nature, with white space surrounding and pervading a variety of angular forms. Diagrammatic lines hint at boundaries that are no longer there. There is a sense in these images of constructing an alternative reality out the presence of loss. A number of related works are more literal in their depiction of a well-lit space, with an open window, and a path that leads out into the darkness to house that seems to exist in a far dimension of absence and memory. John Mendelsohn

11 Jonathan Beer Biography Jonathan Beer creates paintings that enquire into how the human mind seeks to construct its own versions of reality. Through images that employ both the landscape and constructed forms, he draws a parallel between cognitive functions and the workings of nature. In a recent series, he uses architectural forms to explore feelings of loss and displacement. Beer was born in New Orleans in 1988, and grew up in the suburbs of Albany NY. He was encouraged in his strong, early interest in art by his parents, and by the example of his grandmothers, both of whom were artists. Beer was particularly taken with the Salvador Dalí print and the reproduction of a work by Hieronymous Bosch hanging in his home. Travel with his family to museums in the U.S. and Europe further expanded his exposure to art. An early attraction to comic book art gave way to his first independent art works that reflected the political and economic plight of a range of populations. These mixed media pieces were based on images that Beer found in the National Geographic Magazine. The 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York prompted his initial painting on canvas, which drew upon media images of the event. Beer studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York, graduating with a BFA in Illustration in. While in school, he was first interested in West Coast Pop Surrealism, and then began connecting with a range of art and ideas that would influence his current work. There was his involvement with the natural world that Beer found in his trips to the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. The art of the Hudson River School, and particularly the paintings of Albert Bierstadt, gave him a model for his dramatic landscape images. Beer cites as influences both Roberto Matta, the abstract expressionist whose inscape series conveys a sense of the psyche s inner space, and Francis Bacon, the British painter of figures in psychologically charged theater-like spaces. Beer came to realize that his fascination with diagrams, models and schematic drawings was a source for his developing work as a painter. His interest in the nature of reality was stimulated by both the study of philosophy and by the science of brain function. Beer was especially affected by the book How the Mind Works by cognitive scientist Stephen Pinker. Complementing this concern is the artist s work as Director and Co-founder (along with his father, an opthamologist) of the Blind Artists Society. Beer s solo shows have been at Albany Molecular Corporation, and at Bethlehem Public Library, both in Albany NY. His group exhibitions include those at New York University, Theaterlab, The Puffin Room, and the ArtNow Fair, all in New York. Beer is currently in the MFA program at the New York Academy of Art.

12 Jonathan Beer Artist Statement The current body of work was begun in The earlier paintings combine a vision of the landscape with elements of human construction. The later paintings use interior spaces abstractly, reminiscent of theater sets pervaded by empty space. In the Pontifex paintings of skies with dramatic clouds serve as the backdrop for cities, transmission towers and other architectonic forms. The paintings often feature landscapes on huge, curving arcs, supported by scaffolding, and floating in the sky. The Pontifex paintings and other related works show nature in violent upheaval, with volcanoes, storms, and fires. These paintings connect the idea of natural systems with the functioning of the mind, particularly its impulse to construct versions of reality. Like nature, the mind is involved in acts of creation, destruction and chance. As humans, we exist as membranes between external experience and the interior world of cognition and memory. The paintings seek to explore the geography of that membrane, to observe and depict mental processes that are constantly in transition. The Memory Studies paintings and drawings combine sections of the artist s apartment and the homes of his relatives into imagined spaces. These works become a way of showing how memory works to preserve a sense of presence and surrenders to a feeling of loss. White space surrounds and interrupts these spaces making absence visible. A number of these works share the title of Long May You Run, and show a lighted room and a pathway that leads out window to a house in the darkness. These works embody a personal sense of mental and emotional connection that persists over time and space.

13 For exhibition inquiries contact Katharine T. Carter & Associates Phone: Fax: Mailing Address: Post Office Box 609 Kinderhook, NY Website: