More Artist Background

I have been painting and creating art for many years. It probably seriously started around 1992. Friends were away at various Art Colleges having fun and being students. I figured I to could create some "abstract art", I guess my mind had previously been in a traditional art mode. At the time I was working in the steel fabrication industry. Days in dark foundries, blistered and burnt hands from showers of molten metal. I lived alone in a three bedroom house, I had the room to experiment creating random sculptures and two metre square abstract paintings which hung from many of the walls. I had the space and the freedom to experiment. My aim was to train myself in technique and style to enable me to "escape" the unhealthy work environment breathing in toxic fumes and an enclosing future.

I enrolled on a Art "A" level course at a local college. I passed with an A+ grade using an abstract project based on circles. ( I have recently "dug up" this project again and I am about to embark on the next, more mature series of investigations. The details will be in a future post.) My results encouraged me to take my art further and after a couple of years studying and practising in my spare time I managed to get a portfolio of paintings together.

1995 I left Sheffield, sold my house, left my job and enrolled at the University studying Visual Art. Three years focusing on the study of Art, meeting like minded people and exposure to many creative methods. I enjoyed, excelled and revelled in the luxury of freedom and potential. I filled sketch books galore, made films, learnt photography processes, experimented with ceramic sculptures and studied various art philosophies.

My eyes opened, my brain adsorbed, my intellect focused. I knew that I needed to be a creative artist. The years previous to my university days I had always had that artist eye, the weird viewpoint, an interest in the unusual, a quirky taste. Photographing walls because of the colour relationship of the bricks. Creativeness is part of me and it runs through my veins.

The Shark-Headed Man

54 x 72 cm

acrylic & conte on paper

Un-Themed gallery art4oka.com

He is fascinated by the changes he is going through.

A Glimpse of the Reasons

If you read my information pages on art4oka.com you will read some of the descriptors of my work and some of the indications of the style and reasoning behind my artworks. However throughout the years I have experimented with many styles and methods of creating art. In the early days I was creating small welded metal abstract sculptures, as well as very large abstracted expressive colourful paintings with collages on paper. The artworks had no real backbone or reason other than experimentally expressive. I was untrained and unfocused.

After thought. After study. After contemplation. My Art now has more serious meanings, more of a backbone. However, this is not always as true as I would like to think that it is. It just generally means that I like to have a point or a reason for creating the artworks. Much of my work is divided into the various projects that I have on the go. As I mention above I have experimented with different styles or even phases of painting and drawing.

Generally speaking my artwork does have an organic feel to it. Naturalistic, muted tones

evidence of paint or pigment application. Curved lines and strokes suggesting abstracted figures and shapes. These basics are also replicated in the majority of my drawings. It must be a deep rooted, maybe subconscious influence of misshapen boulders and gnarled old trees.

A good many of my larger paintings are in this style, reflecting somehow a bodily form.

Together when? When together

39 x 51 cm

acrylic & conte on collage, paper

Un-Themed gallery art4oka.com

A detailed, gentle painting of abstracted tenderness.

Painted over a short story co-written by the artist.

Together when? When together.

Original Abstract Art | Art4oka.com | Portfolio

Welcome to the art4oka.com blog

Art4oka.com website has been a long time coming. Finally a show case / portfolio for my artwork. My name is Jonathan Oakes and I have been an artist for many years and have a large back catalogue of artwork ready to introduce to people. Hopefully, the art4oka.com website will allow me to do this. My art is mainly abstract in flavour and I tend to specialise in painting and drawing. I use acrylics and mixed media when necessary.

In my blog I will endeavour to explain some of the reasoning and inspirations behind my art. I usually have a couple of art projects or themes on the go at the same time. I might even be willing to share some insights into the generation of these ideas too.

Background image: art4oka.com

The image to the left is entitled :

Curing

Pen on paper

29 x 20 cm

Curing is a process during which a reaction takes place resulting in a harder, tougher or more stable substance. To make someone with an illness healthy again. Something that solves a problem or improves a bad situation.

Curing is located in the Wide Draw gallery. Art4oka.com Curing is one of my recent drawings, created when convalescing from an ankle operation. Around this time I starting thinking about building art4oka.com. Many artworks to scan in and many weeks of sitting down waiting to be healed. I figured it would be an apt image for the background page of the website.

Artist background:

After a long break I am hoping to restart and revitalise my artistic endeavours.

I grew up in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, U.K. Spent time as a welder and cutter in steel foundries. Leisure time was spent walking in wild woods and in the rugged landscapes of the Peak District National Park. Started painting abstract artworks in my early twenties as a form of expression. I had the space, the time and the angst. Encouraged by my results and friends, I left Sheffield and enrolled as a mature student at the University of Gloucestershire, U.K. After experience in painting, ceramics, art history, photography, video art and many other adventures I graduated with a B.A (hons) in Visual Art and Professional Media. Then a freelance Graphic Designer and exhibiting artist for approximately five years, including a number of successful exhibitions in St. Ives, Cornwall. U.K. 2001 completed Masters Degree in Electronic Media (Oxford Brookes University). After several difficult years of being an artist I refocused my creative yearnings into composing and editing digital music. This digital time also has had its own inspirations for my paintings. It is time to step away from all this digital despair (present activity excused), and get my hands covered in paint and charcoal again.

art4oka.com

Art4oka.com is only a click or two away, you are more than welcome to have a look around, hopefully there will be something you like, or something that sparks your interest.

This blog is updated regularly and I have many stories to tell and subjects to discuss.

I will keep you posted. And I will keep on posting.