JonOne – Chaotic Beauty

For me this exhibition in in Saint Petersburg is like a fairytale, in the sense that I am going back to the beginning, to where it all started. It began for me in the ghettos of New York, Growing up I was very poor and I didn’t have many means around me to escape that poverty. I used to pass by the subway and see the trains filled with color and energy, I knew I had to be a part of this movement. I started to use whatever I had at hand and began to make markers out of empty plastic bottles filled with ink and the tops stuffed with felt. I started to use these markers to write on the subway trains, and saw a « chaotic beauty » in the dripping as the ink would leak out from the bottles. These drips became a signature of my writing, and as my calligraphic and abstract style developed I realized how rich, unique, and important this aesthetic was. To this day I use the same style markers in my work, and in this exhibition I pay homage to them.