Jonathan Parsons at James Hockey - art exhibition - Brief Article

Art in America, July, 2001 by Alex Coles

Half the work in this exhibition hinges on the way Jonathan Parsons empties out commonplace signs (usually national flags) through an emphasis on material process. The "Skeleton" series (ongoing since 1998) consists of framed ink drawings of the British flag. By reducing the Union Jack to a monochrome image, however, the drawings barely index their referent. Obvious qualities are forsaken in favor of re-creating idiosyncratic details, in this case the warp and weft of the flag's fabric. Similarly, the two actual flag works, both hung from the wall, Commune (1998) and Babies Blue (2000), consist of flags from various nations with their color drained out. Hung in a gridlike formation, Parsons's monochrome flags are almost indistinguishable and, astonishingly, appear to avoid any discussion whatsoever regarding national identity. Indeed, by making esthetic experiences out of loaded semiotic structures, Parsons clearly differentiates himself from fellow "Sensation" alumni such as Gavin Turk and Sarah Lucas (to name just two artists who have appropriated the Union Jack), whose work is soaked in the rather glib notion of "Britishness."

The other major series (also ongoing) consists of lattice paintings in high-key colors. These oils on canvas rework that fulcrum of modernist painting, the grid. From a distance 1998 World View (Diastereomer), appears to be made up of a number of colored bands that overlap each other in the sequence in which they were applied. An "archeological" reading of the painting would, logically, start with the only unbroken band (maroon red) and work backward to the most fragmented one (cadmium yellow). But Parsons's technique thwarts such a method. The overlapping is pure illusion: the bands have not been painted continuously from edge to edge but are constantly interrupting each other. Rather than weakening the painting's structure though, this method reinforces the tautness of the lattice. The fact that the colors strongest in hue are also, at times, the most interrupted (and so appear, literally, farther away) has the effect of pulling the entire structure even tighter.

The other two lattice paintings, Formulation Picture and Aspect (both 2000) repeat the idea but with wider bands and on a much larger scale. Consequently, some of the tension is lost, especially in Aspect, which at over 4 feet square, is almost double the size of World View (Diastereomer). Ultimately then, what links these seemingly disparate but engaging works is the way in which Parsons untangles both esthetically and politically loaded semiotic systems and subsequently weaves them back together again with his own highly tuned handiwork.