LOT DETAILS

Materials:

Acrylic and aerosol spray on canvas

Measurements:

59.06 in. (150.00 cm.) (height) by 72.83 in. (185.00 cm.) (width)

Markings:

signed lower left, countersigned, dated and titled on the back

Exhibited:

John Andrew Perello aka JonOne was born in Harlem in 1963. Academic and family problems drove him to leave home. He discovered graffiti when he was 17 and began to tag his name in streets and on subway cars. This was when he met A-One (Anthony Clark) a close friend of Basquiat’s and together they began to see  their work as art not vandalism. This was a real revelation for street art. According to JonOne» the subway was a museum running through the city» where he saw the shimmering trails of colour and speed left by subway carriages. For the young JonOne his mentor A-One thus represented a link between the worlds of the street and contemporary art. A few years later the young man founded 156 All Starz a collective of several graffiti artists. Taking the name of JonOne as we now know him he moved to Paris in 1987 where he began to paint on canvas. A self-taught artist he succeeded in elevating graffiti to the rank of noble art. His painting which he defined as «Abstract Expressionist graffiti» was particularly  focused on a restless movement in colour and his work soon appeared in exhibitions in Paris Tokyo Monaco New York and Hong Kong. While JonOne’s early tags seemed like simple raw egocentric assertions they gradually gave way to invasive organic frescoes taking up a whole wall. The paintings we are presenting are all fine illustrations of his vibrant talent.