Jon Wassom – Featured Artist
I’d like to thank this month’s featured artist, Jon Wassom, for his incredible work in abstract realism, and permission for inclusion in Gen Society. To learn more about Jon check out his biography below and visit his links.
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/jonwassomartist
WEBSITE: www.wassomgallery.com
—MUSIC—
All the recording stems to my upcoming full-length acoustic 2019 release, Spiritual Revolution, are finally complete. I’m onto stage two, mixing and producing. Below are a few photos from the final recording session adding bass to a handful of songs. Thanks, John Emmerson, for your musicianship. I’ll be showcasing individual tunes from the album via Gen Society and Loryn websites. Stay tuned for further updates!
—WRITING—
**Novel Excerpt**
PART III
My home, my remarkable home, buried through years of impeachment and war. Now crumbled between the dissonance of the earth, as five vagabonds we have gathered to examine
Next of Kin
This isn’t going work, is it? No matter which way we go about it, the tyrant will always be waiting, conquering gold ships from the corner of a room with promises that float to the moon. They’ll always exist, wanting more, and everything will never be enough. And these leviathans will prevail, too, until they are so filled their pants explode at the hips. Until the entire world is belted at their waistline and the universe is hemmed next in command. But what choice do we have, we must attempt
It all must change, and it is, even these tyrannical mongers, but there is little in our hands correctively and nomenclature can’t be reinvented, neither can instantiations of barbarism or one programmatic genius that’s flagged the civil world with toy droids. And just when you think the populous has endured enough from the mad, this architect will endow the adequation of a namesake mastermind. It’ll scramble the functioning commonalities of species detachment and enlarge a vastness and vacancy to a pronounced reservation and/or extermination by, for, and within the same characteristic moral fiber. A formulaic presumption by the deadening soul, tortured by inflections of grandeur, manipulating armies of civilians to misdirected promises of healing hopes to a better world, in light of greater light, that will shine upon the blessed being within parables of that misdirection. Everything will be reduced to a paltry dramaturgy while mobs are conducted to oversimplify action and reaction, parading complexities of the human spirit as something greater, blanketing those with fair appetites of nonspiritual perfection.
The face was cleaned accidentally, almost always.
It is the mask that relives the ancient burial.
You haven’t yet lost yourself in a dancer’s theater denouncing the avant-garde. And now, unable to reverse its trustworthy momentum, you shall pose indifferently.
I am beginning and this is my world.
We must defend it before it becomes tarnished by the hands of the yellow sky. The giant arms like cranes stretching across the horizon, reaching for the barren surface to hold in its palm. Screeching mechanical ants with two arms and too many thoughts.
We must defend it before information ports become useless, hollowed out shells, replaced with batteries containing hyperactive logos that read Property of DAT (Data Atrophy Technologies); graffiti dressing the avenues with nonsensical acronyms like NLMIOHS and is subject to be interpreted, spelling out longer, perverse statements—No Longer Man Is Of His Soul.
We must defend it before the superintendent harnessing cybernetic grammar releases the spoils… and it will come, that I can promise you.
by LORIN DREXLER
Unwritten
about her in some time.
the remaining
tokens fragmented
and chipping like
a statue in an
part of town.
everything withers
over time.
unwritten puzzles
undoing itself
like snakeskin.
an old plum
sits on the windowsill.
amnesia is the palace
for the observed.
maybe
again. maybe
in a dream, and
we’ll be conjoined
through me
and our subconscious.
shadows in
the voice is a skinned
onion. warbled.
and these thoughts
remaining,
an apple in the sky
away from
by LORIN DREXLER
Jon
I have always been drawn to things that have involved movement, music, and the arts. I would consider myself a very versatile artist, and I believe it is because of my diverse experiences growing up. I have been described by many people as a “Renaissance Man”. Starting as early as 6 years old, I focused on learning to play musical instruments such as the piano, trumpet, mellophone, french horn, and snare drum. I received my black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I’ve always enjoyed flying through the air, so I became a gymnast for 8 years, and then switched to diving in high school, placing 4th at state.
It wasn’t until I was 16 years old that I found my passion for painting and drawing. I was fortunate enough to be the first person in the Springville, Utah Museum of Art’s history to receive a Master’s award in the All-State High School show 2 years in a row. There are only 4 awards in the state given out. One of the pieces was purchased by a museum curator. I also was published in 2001 in The Artist’s Magazine for winning The Artist on the Rise competition in the Experimental Category. Surprisingly, I won out of 13,000 entries.
After graduating High School, I became interested in figure skating. Once again, I found myself flying through the air. This was due to watching the Olympians practice for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. Within a few years, I got to perform in the Sun Valley, Idaho Ice Show with World and Olympic Champions.
I attended college at Utah State University and was awarded a full-tuition art scholarship in 2002. In 2006, I was able to apprentice under the well-known artist and Yale graduate Woody Shepherd. He was my professor at the time, and I was taught most of what I know in terms of stenciling, color theory, additive/subtractive processes, and the freedom of exploration. I was also fortunate to learn how to build structurally sound panels.
Ever since, I’ve been able to work as a full-time artist in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore areas. I was also given the opportunity to jury a show for Touchstone Gallery in D.C titled “Art on the Small Side”. While being a gallery member there, I was selected for a commission by Lexus Hybrid Living as the premier artist in a Fairmont Hotel Suite in D.C. The entire suite was designed around my work. Everything was in black and white, except for the color of my work on the walls. I found out afterward, that celebrities such as Nicolas Cage have stayed there. My work was also published in Spaces, in the Summer of 2008 issue.
I moved to Phoenix, AZ in 2010 to train in pairs figure skating. I also attended massage therapy school and have worked as a Licensed Massage Therapist. My experience with athletic and artistic movement, as well as the anatomy of the human body strongly influences my work. Various spiritual concepts are also a major influence. The artists that influence my work are vast and many, but to name a few are: Richard Diebenkorn, Gustav Klimt, Rembrandt, Euan Uglow, R.B. Kitaj, Claude Monet, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Gerhard Richter, and Vincent Van Gogh.
Currently, I reside in Salt Lake City, UT with my wonderful husband Felipe and our dogs Jax and Leena. I’m gratefully living a life I never dreamed of as a full-time artist. I just successfully completed my 6th solo show in my career thus far.
What is Gen Society?
Gen Society is an art space blog for visual art and creative writing collaborations, and other randomizations. Hosted by writer and musician, Lorin Drexler, this online venue is an expressive experience for those interested in the world of the arts. It is a literary journey through the hearts and minds of contemporary artists in practice and a reflection of those that have long passed.
If you’re an artist and would like to submit your work in consideration to collaborate with Gen Society, please click below:
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