Jonathan Avinash Victor
Jonathan explores the nature of the subconscious & the stories held within the mind through acrylics, graphite and ink on canvas & paper. He lives in Singapore.
Message
Jonathan Avinash Victor is a Singapore-based artist who works mainly with acrylic, ink and graphite. An art collector, he met veteran Malaysian artist Jeganathan Ramachandran in the early 2000s, who inspired him to paint.
He apprenticed under Jega in 2019 before completing an advanced painting course at La Salle College of the Arts (Singapore). He won the Contemporary Art Category prize from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations in 2020.
The year 2022 was the first time his works were exhibited in New York (Van Der Plas Gallery) , London (Boomer Gallery) and Singapore (Selegie Arts Centre).
A principal theme in Jonathan’s work is the nature of the subconscious and the stories held within the mind. His works express a human’s search for meaning and beauty.
Statement
I am an artist who specialises in drawing and painting faces as a way of exploring and expressing the wide range of human emotions. These faces are incorporated into my works rather than forming the dominant imagery. I find inspiration in the everyday stories and experiences of the people around me, and my works often reflect a fusion of multiple stories. My choice to use the female face as a focus is simply because it's easier for me to connect and express my own emotions that way. One of my art processes is by the use of ink drawings on paper, which I begin with just one line and work continuously for hours until the entire surface is filled. Instead of trying to interpret or understand the image while I'm working, I prefer to present it to the viewer as an undistilled version of my thoughts. The recurring theme in my work is the inner lives that humans lead, and I have a series of acrylic paintings on canvas that I call "Journey of the Mind" that aims to illustrate this theme through the use of vivid colours, expressive lines and shapes. I want my viewer to be able to connect with my work, and see their own inner world reflected in it.