Makers' Stories: JonOne

With Makers' Stories, Habile portraits personalities who give everything to their craft. From their inspirations to their creations, they open the doors of their imagination and share their daily lives with us.

Today,HABILEmeetsJonOne, celebrated New York painter and graffiti artist straight out of Harlem, now based in France, in Roubaix. His impressive journey has made him one of the finest artists of his kind. He notably founded the graffiti collective156 All Starz, and has rubbed shoulders with the greatest: Bando, Rockin' Squat, A-One, Sharp… Gods of the spray can alongside whom he learned and challenged his art. Very quickly, his work was noticed, and he was exhibited in the most prestigious galleries, from Berlin to Paris by way of New York and Tokyo.

Between spontaneity and a love of work well done, his vibrant art knows how to leave its mark.

Which is fitting: that's his ambition.

One might think that simply wanting to leave behind "a joy of living" is not exactly the most ambitious artistic project.

And yet for JonOne, that joy of living is a particularly rare commodity. Especially in today's world, where everything moves fast and no one takes the time to be amazed anymore.

And this joy he sends bursting out in shards of colour across his work. Red, yellow, black, blue, violet, green… In his studio, splattered with paint from floor to ceiling, he tries to create works like diamonds: raw, yet when you look at them, they scatter hundreds of colours and make your eyes sparkle. Much like his own, when he talks about his art.

But make no mistake: there is no megalomania in JonOne. And yet he could easily boast, given the staggering sums his works have reached at auction, or a career studded with high-profile collaborations with major brands: Guerlain, Perrier, Hennessy, Lacoste, Agnès B…

With characteristic modesty, he tends to credit his success to being "in the right place at the right time", but also to the people around him who pushed him to give his best. Through years spent alongside other artists, he feels he gradually discovered a new way of seeing the world, and immediately made it his mission to act rather than simply observe.

And indeed: far from lofty theories about artistic worth or heaven-sent talent, JonOne is firmly down to earth:"If you want to be a dancer, you dance. If you want to be an artist, you paint. It's as simple as that. You paint and you show what you can do."

For him, the artist is shaped and truly becomes who he is through doing. The image of artists chaining cigarettes on a terrace, putting the world to rights with grand words, and occasionally producing masterpieces when they stumble home drunk at night? That's a long way from him.

For JonOne, the only way to be a true artist is to live in action and take things seriously. Sketching constantly, working every day, failing sometimes… But painting.

Paint, paint, paint — because it remains the best way to be a painter.

But above all, to last over time: of course there are shooting stars that shine for a year or two. Yet for JonOne, what matters is not fleeting success, but a career that endures and keeps pushing you to look higher and further. So he takes hard work over luck, every time.

Especially since working without pause also allows you to reinvent yourself more fully. It is by exploring your own field of possibilities that you discover new techniques and new avenues you had never even considered. That is why JonOne sets no limits for himself in terms of medium or style. Watercolour, gouache, black and white, thick impasto, fine lines, graffiti, sculpture… He opens every door to find the right one, and refuses himself nothing.

Multi-generational despite a style strongly inspired by the colours and energy of the 80s, JonOne has his gaze turned toward the future, or at least firmly rooted in the present. Hence the need to constantly evolve his style, to better adapt to the times while keeping his signature touch.

And his style, if one had to sum it up in a word? Vibrant. Vibrant with colour, audacity, explosions. With JonOne, even forgotten colours find their place. Right now, for instance, he has developed a passion for blue and grey. Surprisingly neutral shades compared to his colourful universe — ones he encounters every day in the sky of northern France, where he has set up his new studio. Why these colours? They inspire him because they allow the vivid palette that dominates his work to be seen and appreciated more clearly. Sure, the South looks more like the warm tones of his paintings. But nothing quite like a striking contrast to better bring out the unexpected.

His face flecked with fresh paint, he also explains that each of his canvases hides a story of patience, much like wine. Canvases born of a stroke of genius, made on a whim? Not quite: between each layer of a painting, there can be 3 to 6 months of drying time… Which, rather than generating frustration, delights JonOne: it gives him the feeling of having the power to stop time… And time is something we desperately need in this society of people in a hurry, where everyone wants everything right now.

Hence the paramount importance, for him, of managing to capture attention.

"If I can help people feel 10 minutes of joie de vivre in their day through my paintings… Well, that's great."he confides with a smile.

A fine ambition for this artist of talented modesty, who lives in the hope of leaving behind him "a great multicoloured mark."