JON ROLLINS

"My studio is filled with scraps from the past: doodles, notes, experiments, tape, work table coverings, and abandoned projects. I don’t see them as inspiration, studies, or failures, but as not-yets: the raw materials for new work. Despite their unresolved nature, the scraps seem to hold the promise of a new idea. Each piece represents a time in my artistic development and all of the expressions, mishaps, and inquiries of that period. In these works, the surface of the canvas is a space to reevaluate the scraps formally and revisit the possibilities they contain.

The process begins with a selection of scraps. I keep them in unsorted boxes; a sketch from last week may be next to a 1998 kindergarten journal entry. As I look through the scraps, relationships emerge between old and new, intentional marks and mistakes, mementos and impersonal materials. Through cycles of spontaneity and deliberation, layers of scraps are collaged and then altered with paint, drawing, and a razor. This process is the search for formal balance and a novel resolution of each scrap, a moment when a seemingly ephemeral product of the studio is resolved; a torn drawing or an old piece of tape just fits.

Though a few pieces may be united in a new form, the possibilities of the scrap bin can never be exhausted. As scraps are used to create a work, a fresh set of materials is added to the pile. It may seem like I’m taking the long way. However, the act of keeping and revisiting these objects of the past combined with this process of addition and subtraction creates space for reflection and serendipity: something is revealed I did not and could not see before."

Jon Rollins (b. 1991) creates layered abstract works through intervals of collaging materials collected from his studio practice and daily life, drawing, and erasure using paint and a razor. He has exhibited work in New York, Madrid, Basel, Miami Beach, and throughout North Carolina. Jon earned his BFA in Studio Art at UNC-Chapel Hill. His first solo show opened in New York City in 2019. In 2021, his work was featured in New American Paintings Vol. 154. He has presented five solo shows over the past two years. Jon lives and works in High Point, North Carolina.