DAVID JONES

PROPP JONES STUDIO
4541 N. Ravenswood Ave.
Number 402 N
Chicago , IL. 60640
773-761-7828
email:proppjonesstudio

ARTIST STATEMENT 2010

After the photo images now what? After nearly 10 years of creating transfer prints, I needed a change. I started making pen and ink drawings based on the schematics of engine and related auto parts.

The drawings reflect my obsession with mechanical things, specifically the automobile. These machines are ubiquitous in the landscape

Once, at a party I was approached by a woman who asked me if a certain person was at the party. She did not know his name. But, she knew what kind of car he drove.

I see the drawings as a metaphor for our relationship with things, filling up our space and numbing our senses. The drawings give a sense visual overload. Piles of mechanical detritus waiting to be recycled. This series "Notations From Gridville" is inspired by the writing of Vincent Quatroche.

ARTIST STATEMENT 2009

In this life, the slippage of time is becoming ever more apparent to me. It is those flashes of moments that I endeavor to capture. If in some way I can create an image that is evocative of some mood or of a momentary shift of perception then I have succeeded. I am attracted to movement and night images because of their ambiguity.

It is my goal to be present in these brief and transitory moments. I create images out of the tradition of the family snapshot and the street photographer, sprinkled with a generous helping of painting, printmaking and drawing. I meld the various disciplines in such a way that meshes with the way I see. I also want to create a dialogue between the two disciplines of photography and printmaking.

Working Method
The camera has always been one of my tools of choice. My process includes digital photographs, Xerox machine, etching press, and colored pencil. The photos are downloaded into the computer and color separated in Photoshop. I convert the photos into CMYK separations, print them in black and white, and Xerox and enlarge them.  The Xeroxes then become the plates that will receive ink (thus the process paper-plate lithography). Each separation is inked up by hand with oil based ink, one receiving Cyan, one Magenta, one Yellow and one, the key plate, Black.  I hand print one color at a time, onto dampened rag paper. The resultant image is a four-color print. This process follows the way traditional stone lithographs are printed, based on the traditional lithographic premise, that water and grease don't mix. When the print is dry, the image is tinted further with color pencil, sealed with varnish, and adhered to wood panel. With each process there is a transformation of how the image looks but not what it is. In printing the images, using a very loose lithographic hand-printing process, I'm combining contemporary technology and traditional lithographic techniques.

Through this image making process I am attempting to transcend the static nature of photography. My images are more akin to printmaking and drawing than to straight photography. Through this melding of processes, I create an image that is an illusion created with layers of color, dots and marks. I am intrigued by this ambiguity and paradox. Through this process I am no longer an observer but a participant.