ARTIST STATEMENT

My practice attempts to examine the relationship between American popular culture and its subjects by appropriating and re-presenting images from popular media as complex collages or highly abstracted forms. I’m interested in the individual relationships that we as subjects build with images, and the symbolic reading that we are able to gather from them. Within my work there is an attempt to evoke memories and feelings that one may have had in association with the image(s) that I have chosen to work with. I work with American media and popular culture because I, as an American, am highly intrigued by the American mentalities including patriotism, its sense of entitlement, and the idea of the “American Dream” as being a paralyzing ideology within contemporary society. In light of current events surrounding global violence and the time leading up to the U.S. presidential election I am drawing upon the fragility of media audiences to present subtle subversions in political agendas to my audience. My latest series titled, Lest We Never Forget, is adopting a politically charged statement of pride and patriotism to approach and question the relationships that we build with seemingly violent iconography. I believe that images have inherent ideologies which are projected and perpetuated by their viewers, and by abstracting and contorting such iconic, meaningful imagery I am hoping to abstract the misconceptions surrounding politics of religion, race, and gender which have and continue to perpetuate an ignorance and bigotry towards other forms of being in and of the world.

Jonathan Hodges is an American Artist from Des Moines, Iowa who graduated From Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2015 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Art and Material Practices- Print Media. Hodges Currently lives and works in the metro Vancouver area and produces the majority of his work at Malaspina Printmakers Society studios on Granville Island. Hodges work has been included in exhibitions across Canada and the US since graduating in May 2015, and his work is held in private collections across North America and Europe.