Mention the word graffiti and an image comes to mind of spray painted words on city walls, subways, bridges and abandoned buildings. I won't take the time to argue about the root meanings of the words graffiti and calligraphy, but in reality the distinctions are rather blurry. Actually, graffiti is just another form of calligraphy, no matter where it's practiced and the works of JONONE help us to see the similarity, or transition between the two.
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Nowadays, a lot of graffiti artists are coming in from the cold and enjoying successful exhibits in galleries. Just as eastern and Asian calligraphy influenced high art many years ago, graffiti too has made tremendous inroads into the oeuvres of famous and respected artists the world over. Little by little we've come to appreciate the genre's place in art history and started to embrace some of these newly socialized taggers.
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JONONE (technically Jon One - but I pronounce it like I see it) is one such artist whose made the transition from tagger to exhibitor. The above image is from, "Urban Calligrapy" in 2005 at the Gallery Speerstra, where he's exhibited every year since 2002
He's represented by Galerie Magda Danysz where you'll find a slideshow of his work and more.
The top image is from star and drama.
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