Small Etchings: 2017-2022
Jonathan Beaumont Thomas
February 26 - March 19, 2022Brackett Creek Editions, Chinatown, NY
Artist CV
Press Release
Interview between Jonathan Beaumont Thomas and Brackett Creek Exhibitions
Brackett Creek is proud to present a survey of recent etchings by Jonathan Beaumont Thomas. The 13 exhibited works were produced over the last 5 years, each in editions of 12 and showcase Thomas’s aquatint printmaking process.
Each aquatint is etched and printed with 3 separate color plates—first in yellow, then red, and lastly a blue that reveals the full spectrum of color, and creates an effect of saturated warm tones and vibrating compositions, to layer and juxtapose the images.
Thomas’s inspiration draws from an existing mass-culture visual language and the hierarchy that governs how and why certain images pass through our lives. Thomas works to democratize the images through a printmaking process that synthesizes the found imagery to the point of visual narrative abstraction. Like David Hockney’s Cameraworks (1983), Thomas’s etchings break up the picture plane to allow the viewer to integrate the whole and float through the works independent of a cohesive narrative, as opposed to those found in the fractured image planes of comic strips, Edward Muybridge photographs, or even Jim Shaw’s Dream Drawings.
In his own image-sourcing practice, Thomas finds free books from the venerable institution in Baltimore, The Book Thing, where you are allowed to take 150,000 books per day, per person. The sheer physical volume of books containing images in this locale makes Thomas’s practice somewhat archaeological. As a result, the material he engages with becomes personal, although ubiquitous, distinct, although random, modern, although antiquated.
Thomas’s resulting aquatints aim to connect and repurpose printmaking’s historical techniques and “purpose” of imitation and reproduction to a contemporary and increasingly fractured human experience.
Jonathan Beaumont Thomas is an artist, printer/collaborator and educator living in Baltimore Maryland. He is currently the Chair of the Printmaking Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he has taught since 2011. Jonathan received his MFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and a BS in Biology from Wake Forest University.
Each aquatint is etched and printed with 3 separate color plates—first in yellow, then red, and lastly a blue that reveals the full spectrum of color, and creates an effect of saturated warm tones and vibrating compositions, to layer and juxtapose the images.
Thomas’s inspiration draws from an existing mass-culture visual language and the hierarchy that governs how and why certain images pass through our lives. Thomas works to democratize the images through a printmaking process that synthesizes the found imagery to the point of visual narrative abstraction. Like David Hockney’s Cameraworks (1983), Thomas’s etchings break up the picture plane to allow the viewer to integrate the whole and float through the works independent of a cohesive narrative, as opposed to those found in the fractured image planes of comic strips, Edward Muybridge photographs, or even Jim Shaw’s Dream Drawings.
In his own image-sourcing practice, Thomas finds free books from the venerable institution in Baltimore, The Book Thing, where you are allowed to take 150,000 books per day, per person. The sheer physical volume of books containing images in this locale makes Thomas’s practice somewhat archaeological. As a result, the material he engages with becomes personal, although ubiquitous, distinct, although random, modern, although antiquated.
Thomas’s resulting aquatints aim to connect and repurpose printmaking’s historical techniques and “purpose” of imitation and reproduction to a contemporary and increasingly fractured human experience.
Jonathan Beaumont Thomas is an artist, printer/collaborator and educator living in Baltimore Maryland. He is currently the Chair of the Printmaking Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he has taught since 2011. Jonathan received his MFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and a BS in Biology from Wake Forest University.