Jayo Chandler - About
Artist Statement
I work with a variety of mediums on paper, currently with ink, dry pigments, charcoal, and pastel. I create abstract images that include both recognizable and unrecognizable forms, with a degree of specificity that changes across the image and throughout my process. I use a broad range of colors that I create from just a few primary colored inks.
I typically start my works by “turning my brain off” while I make quick, intuitive marks, allowing something to guide me other than my conscious self. I then spend some time looking at what I’ve made so far with my now activated pattern-recognition-primed human brain to tease out shapes and forms that appeal to me on a base-sensory and interest level. I then alternate back to letting myself be guided by the work without putting my own conscious intentions on it, and repeat this process until a layered image makes itself known.
This process to me feels like a more accurate representation of life and ideas, how they change over time in ways I could never predict. They exist where everything bleeds into everything else, in a space between clarity, confusion, the grotesque, and the beauty. I chase the ecstasy of pulling something out of nothing.
During my time at Skidmore I have taken classes across a broad range of disciplines including Astronomy, Buddhism, Neuroscience, Apocolypse, Philosophy and Utopia. These courses introduced me to concepts and ways of thinking previously unfamiliar, which ended up impacting my work tremendously.
Recently my works have revolved around the ideas of energies and spirithood connecting bodies. I’ve been rendering a glow that secretes from the forms I make, displaying an energy and intention that branches off them and spreads. I am excited to push this further and experiment with other mediums.
Education
2020 - 2024
Skidmore College
Exhibitions
2024
Art Major Senior Thesis Exhibition, Tang Teaching Museum