Biography

Jonathan Barrios, born in 1983 in White Plains, New York, graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2007 and relocated to Brooklyn, New York where he has lived since. In 2011, he graduated with an M. Arch I master’s degree from the Pratt Institute.

While never veering far from his roots in fine arts during graduate school, his drawing style, reminiscent of automatic drawing continued to evolve. Using fine lines repetitively drawn over themselves, the emerging imagery that developed spans an array of ominous figures, ambiguous creatures, scenes and landscapes. The imagery immediately conveys a sense of unease and uncertainty, exacerbated through the use of collage elements, both found and discarded, is used in the base construction, some in preparation of the drawing surface, and others as activators of the drawing space. What transpires is an ongoing subconscious narrative, a visually suggestive dialogue rooted in perception: how one perceives oneself, how one thinks they are perceived and the continuous interplay (or “mirroring”) between the two. Derived from a history of misread social cues, questions of stature, and of one’s sexuality called into question, the concepts of self, agency and ultimately the “I” came into question. Varying from piece to piece, the tension is heightened, obscured or subverted through the use of watercolor and acrylic washes, patterned pen and ink work, and even the manipulation of the surface to create an ethereal environment where whimsical flairs are juxtaposed against apprehensive or even threatening creatures.

Jonathan believes that this tactile process of building using discarded everyday materials, along with his drawing style, not only aims to deliberately reveal the nuanced processes that are assumed implied in the maturation of one’s identity, but also exorcises this discord by putting the viewer face-to-face with all the machinations that come with this process.