JAKE BOND

​My work is an introspective exploration. I engage with a process of automatic drawing and painting to create surreal creatures that inhabit uncertain, equivocal realms and traverse psychological spaces. I often use several layers of precisely applied oil paint as a way of imposing some sort of sentience into these ambiguous creatures, and by working this way, my artwork becomes not just a representation, but a reflection of identity, existence, and the passage of time.

The creatures I paint are neither fully human nor fully other, existing in a more liminal position that mirrors the complexities of a turbulent world. They are reflections from my inner world, embodying an exploration of temporality and mortality. Through the act of creation, I confront the transience of life and the inevitability of death, while also embracing the simultaneous beauty and uncertainty of both.

This self-reflexive practice serves as a way to examine my place within the larger cycle of life, and that my understanding is constantly shifting and evolving. The figures that appear in my work are not completely fixed or static, but in a perpetual state of becoming - always in flux. Through the enigmatic essence of these creatures and the world they inhabit, I aim to reveal the tensions between the known and the unknown, the self and the other, and the fleeting nature of all things.