The Dizziness of Freedom

There is a quote in the famous novel On the Road (1957) that goes:

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.

This jazz-like spontaneity of Jack Kerouac’s prose is something of a guiding principle to Jonas Fisch, a Los Angeles-based artist who was born in a small fisherman’s village in southern Sweden and took up the creative path at a young age under the influence of his renowned artist grandmother Ann-Marie Sjögren. Jonas’s paintings are vibrant and energetic. They could be expressions of personal emotions or explorations of old myths or commentaries on contemporary societies.

*On the Road* (1951/1957) by Jack Kerouac (2008, Penguin Classics)

The process behind them is instinctive and organic. “I try and not to judge or censor what comes up,” says the painter, “and at a certain point the painting comes alive, takes on a life of its own and reveals itself. It’s the point of no return and I have no choice but to paint it.”

In addition to the rhythms of Kerouac, Jonas links his free and colourful art to the theories of the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. “A lot of my paintings emerge from my subconscious and are put together by feelings trying to find a harmony,” he explains. “Music also plays a big role. A rhythm, melody or lyric will work its way onto the canvas or trigger an emotion that gets transferred into a brush stroke, colour or poem.”

Jonas mentions four artists whose stylistic elements he has adopted and adapted in his works: Jean DuBuffet (famous for his anti-traditional “low art”), Willem de Kooning (major figure of “abstract expressionism”), Jackson Pollock (pioneer of “drip painting”) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (famous for “primitivism”).

Jonas has exhibited across California, in New York, Chicago and most recently, in Hong Kong. His paintings can be found in private collections all over the world. He plans to produce mixed media works in the near future and also collaborate with a photographer and a writer.