An interview with Jon Malis
Jon Malis is an Associate Professor of Fine Arts and Photography at Loyola University Maryland who also happens to be an award-winning artist. His art deals with the representation and display of visual imagery, focusing on how the viewers interpret his work. His work has been included in a variety of shows and galleries including our own Julio Fine Arts Gallery. I had a chance to speak to Malis about some of his work and where he receives his inspiration.
There are so many different pieces in the gallery. I asked him what his favorite piece was to create and why. He responded by saying, “I think it’s really hard to pick favorites – in some ways, I think all work has to have the potential to be my favorite for me to let it leave my studio and go out into the world – if I’m, as the artist, not that confident in my work, how can I expect my viewers to enjoy and/or understand it?”
Although Malis was not able to pick a single piece that was his favorite, he was able to identify his favorite element from this show. Malis says, “If I had to pick a favorite element about this show specifically, I think the two Photoshop Painting pieces that form an unintentional diptych with the corner (the two checkerboards) was a real gift from the gallery back to the work.”
I then followed up with a question about the work, International Klein Blue, According to Google Image Search. I asked Malis what the main reason of creating this piece was. His answer was about turning his research into something visual that everybody could see instead of reading about. “Most of my work with International Klein Blue has been research-based so far: I wrote a conference paper about the digital variations in his copyslides, and the next step is to physically measure the color in his paintings to discuss possible variation between his actual works, as well as the variations between the (digital) copyslides/reproductions of his work and the actual paintings being depicted. In producing this piece, I wanted to consider how I could translate all the work I’ve done with IKB into a visual context: how can my rather computational and analytical research be activated into the gallery and presented for the casual viewer?”
I ended my interview by asking him how he was able to create the largest works in the show, the Automatic Photoshop Paintings. These pieces are the largest and appear, to me at least, to be the most interpretive pieces in the gallery. Malis had this to say about the work, “The Automatic Photoshop Paintings all begin as a grid of individual pixels, that, through iterations of resizing through various algorithms, take on their own life and shape.”
Malis’ work is truly inspirational and allows a lot to be discovered when being viewed. Everyone may see something different while viewing his work, but we are all able to experience the breathtaking view of it. Come see Malis’ work on display in the Julio Fine Arts Gallery until November 12th, 2021.
