Jonathon Blake is a University of Virginia graduate who has lived in Charlottesville for the last 20 years. Growing up in Mechanicsville, Virginia, he made the move from his hometown in 1998 while attending the university. Drawn to art, writing, mixed media and a variety of other expressive outlets from an early age, Blake had some early encouragement in the form of gifted classes, writing seminars and a short story that was published nationally while he was in high school.

During his college years, his interest in visual arts increased dramatically, while he simultaneously invested time with an improvisational comedy troupe known as The Whethermen. Upon graduating, Blake began attending a number of art and music festivals, where he eventually witnessed a painter on stage at a major American music festival with one particular band, creating a piece while the music was unfolding. The blend of spontaneity, risk and excitement of improv hadn’t been lost on him and seeing this particular artist apply that ethos to canvas while music was playing made perfect sense to him. It wasn’t long after that he was contacting bands himself and setting up an easel at more and more events. In fact, he ended up painting with the same band that he’d witnessed his first live painter create to.

Blake’s artistic approach tends to be part DIY, part folk art and part religious experience. He submerges himself in the surroundings of a happening and attempts to translate it in some sort of vivid, almost hallucinatory way. Works shift and change throughout the course of a few or several hours…sometimes ending up drastically different from what they began as. Words surface and disappear, snippets of songs emerge and become a part of the visual narrative in surprisingly coincidental ways…magic happens. In many ways, the paintings are meditative pieces as much as they are forays into musical translation and the ultimate goal is generally one of universal positivity, love and connection. He hopes that anyone that sees his work walks away a little happier than before they saw it.

He currently finds time for a few shows here and there in between working for MusicToday and taking care of his 4 year old son, Joseph.