manifest international drawing annual 2007 exhibition-in-print
online resource





Jon Mahnke
Minneapolis, Minnesota

University of Minnesota, Graduate Student


jon@jonmahnke.com

www.jonmahnke.com


page 85




collapse all | expand all

statement

My art deals primarily with natural forms in particular the human body. I am interested in creating images that represent both the seductive beautiful side of a body as well as the repellent and grotesque. My images are generally modified forms found throughout nature and anatomy. I see my art as a meditation on what it is to be a living organism. Our bodies are the culmination of billions of years of evolution. We are elegant graceful creatures as well as fluid filled sacs. I want to make art that represents both.


In my work I try to avoid immediate identification, I want my forms to feel familiar and yet remain ambiguous. I am interested in the way people interpret these suggestive forms. The borders of my work are often defined by a notion of photography as if in my mind I can see the whole form and I am choosing to only show a portion. I am interested in creating art that has the tension of something that is going to happen or has just happened.
The processes of drawing and printmaking play an integral role in my art practice; I generally start each piece with a vague notion of the form and an idea that I want to convey. It is through the act of drawing that my forms emerge.

bio

born: 1979, Fargo, ND


education

University of Minnesota, MFA, 2008
University of Iowa, BFA, 2004


 
 
Copyright © 2006-2009 Manifest Press