Untitled Document

ABOUT THE ARTIST
To feel, smell, taste and experience
-If we approach art mainly by our intellect, we get easily trapped in a technocratic and bureaucratic thinking and run the risk of not really experiencing things. This is with Jon's own word actually the manifesto of his art. Jon is an exciting artist who paints in the borderland between poetry and reality. In his abstract but nevertheless human art, the human being appears as a rare bird but still an integral part of nature.
For this self-taught artist and sculptor it's the form and the colours that matter. His idiom comes from sculpture, developing into drawings and finally with colours into paintings. From the beginning the drawings were more finished but in the course of time they have turned into outlines for the paintings - that have always been number one. This kind of paintings need in fact a lot of preparation, says Jon. It all starts with an idea in the head, that turns into an outline and the painting takes form.
Jon became interested in drawing and painting when he was a child in Malmö, where he was born in 1933. After school he entered the School of Art Nessem in Malmö. During his studies he painted concrete motives such as fisher sheds in the harbour of Malmö and landscapes. But during this period he also got acquainted with more avant-gardistic movements through "imaginists" like the Swedes C.O. Hultén and Anders Österlin and became himself more directed towards abstract motives. During all his artistic career he has been oscillating between the very distinct and the surrealistic. The origin of his actual style can be traced back to his early paintings thirty years ago but today in a more developed form. It goes in periods of seven years, he says.
Jon made his debut in 1958 at an exhibition in Malmö and from then on one exhibition has followed another, all around Sweden as well as in foreign countries such as France, at the Grand Palais in Paris, and Italy, Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Jon lives in Huskvarna in the South of Sweden, where he moved with his wife in 1966. He is very active in the artistic field, both as an artist as a consultant. He is the author of a numerous decoration projects, such as the colouring in billowing pattern of 80 000 square meters of walls in the housing area of Råslätt in Jönköping as well as sculptures in concrete and stainless steel, big wall paintings etc that ornament buildings, interiors and housing areas in Värnamo, Jönköping and Huskvarna.
Jon has no intention of retiring, he is still full of enthusiasm and energy. -The problem is not to get started but to get finished with your painting.

Solo exhibitions
SDS-hallen, Galleri Händer Malmö, Galleri Dialog Stockholm, Kronhusbodarna Göteborg, Stadsgalleriet Halmstad, Stadhuskuben Falkenberg, Jönköpings läns museum, Vetlanda Museum, Galleri Moment Ängelholm, Galleri Struktur Hälsingborg, Galleri Danielsson, Borgholm etc.

Jury evaluated exhibitions
Skånes konstförenings höstutställning in Malmö and Lund, Liljevalchs Vårsalong in Stockholm, Unga Tecknare at Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Länssalongen at Jönköpings Läns Museum, Smålandssalongen in Värnamo etc.

Collective exhibitions
FIAC 81 in Grand Palais, Paris and in Italie, Denmark, Norway and Finland, Malmö, Stockholm, Jönköping, Landskrona, Skissernas Museum (ADK) Lund etc.

Represented at
Länsmuseet in Jönköping, Vetlanda Museum, Skissernas Museum (ADK i (Lund), Statens Konstråd, municipalities and county councils

Public ornaments
Jönköping, Habo, Värnamo, Gislaved, Tranås, Kalmar, Kristdala, Oskarshamn, Huskvarna.

Grants
Jönköpings läns landsting, Jönköpings kommun, Jönköpings läns Konstförening-Märta och Axel Bengtssons fond, Konstnärsnämnden