Hello visitors to the ArtSpan website. My etchings often examine cities and people in cities. These are generally places I have lived including New York, Germany and San Francisco. To collect information for my prints I make drawings on the street and in public places such as hotels.

After many years of working in mezzotint, an engraving technique that requires precision and forethought, I am now exploring the realms of wax painting and abstract imagery.  Each image starts as a simple shape, assuming different permutations until the final image is achieved.  The encaustic process introduces me to a spontaneity that does not exist in my mezzotints.  The new work represents a passage both toward a new way of working, and perhaps more importantly, toward a new way of seeing.

Narrative storytelling and mythology inform my work. I am so grateful to my teachers who gave me the skills to communicate in this way. Making art is the birthright of all humans.

My recent series of works on paper combines several different ingredients:  the leaves and flowers in my garden and nearby, abstract compositions which sometimes  incorporate objects lying around the house, and monotype prints.  I use a mixed-media and layered technique starting with a background wash of acrylics, followed by a stenciled layer, then a final layer of color pencils and/or Prismacolor art stix to render the leaves and other motifs.  

Since my first introduction to screen printing I have been enthralled by its graphic quality, bold colors, and they way it lends itself to layers. I studied the technique beginning at California College of the Arts in 2000, and work in this medium passionately creating limited edition prints as well as incorporating its ideas and techniques into my paintings. Through layering, collage and juxtaposition, I strive to make layered pieces that deal with the absurdity, poignancy and joy of our world.
     I use collages of photography, drawing, painting, patterning to create layers of images and meaning. My works deal with a variety of emotions about the coexistence of our urban landscape, nature and humanity. I am continually inspired by my surroundings, today\'s urban and natural environments, and have drawn some inspirations as well from Dada, Surrealism and Pop art. Along with exterior and interior architecture and urban life themes, in many pieces I also merge these with the rural and natural landscape, as well as its figures. There is always some humor, irony as well as melancholy in my pieces that continually thread through my work and ideas in some way. I desire to create a surreal vision of reality that incorporates the past, present, and future of our worlds landscapes and characters, causing reflections on where we are today.
 

Jonathan Fischer is screen print based artist living and working in San Francisco. He received degrees in engineering and philosophy of science before learning to screen print with a garden hose and a 60 Watt light bulb at a Mission District arts collective.  Gradually developing a process that crosses boundaries in materials and media, Jon Fischer implements freeform screen printing techniques inspired by his experience painting and drawing. Typical pieces are made on large pieces of wood, paper, and raw textiles, with  attention devoted to building up surfaces with washes, textures, and coatings before an image forms.  Consequently these works end up being as much about surfaces and materials as they are about images.  

Typical pieces are produced in small editions of unique variations that may be displayed together.  This mode of repetition draws attention to the consequences of variation, mistakes, and random chance acting to create wildly different results from the same stencils. This speaks to a question that underlays modern printmaking: what is the meaning of reappropriating mechanical reproduction in an era when mechanical reproduction already makes almost everybody’s belongings, food, and entertainment? Can something beautiful and interesting emerge from the disruption of technological precision?  These works aim to resolve into an image from afar but  offer something very different as one approaches. Up close, the illusion breaks down & the image is exposed for what it is: goopy materials vigorously applied in regular patterns.  

Recent projects have included a series of screen printed motion pictures and “Character Profile,” a group show Fischer curated at Root Division in San Francisco. In April, he will be exhibiting new work at Sanchez Art Center's Left Coast Annual in Pacifica CA, juried by Jenny Gheith (SFMOMA).  In addition to his regular studio work, Fischer regularly pursues partnerships with community-minded organizations on public screenprint projects including signs, parklets, and murals. Fischer currently holds an appointment as Associate Professor of Engineering Technology at the California State University Maritime Academy, where he was awarded the 2014 Outstanding Teaching Award.

My Studio in San Francisco is based in an area of postindustrial decline, populated by architecture that is on the periphery of people’s vision, hidden either by design or by obsolescence, abandoned and forgotten.

My work has always been informed by my immediate environment, where I live, work and go has a direct impact on the subject matter I am drawn to. After moving from London to San Francisco in 2001, I became fascinated by structures displaying a sense of strength and energy, but ignored, threatened by the passage of time to ultimate defeat by corrosion and decay. My work is concerned with depicting how these giant structures appear, not through a sense of romantic yearning for the past, but by responding to location and documenting how they appear to me, now, in the moment.

As an artist who works primarily on paper, Printmaking is the perfect vehicle for me to explore these themes of atmosphere and corrosion. The Monoprint process enables me to create images that are clotted and heavy with dark ink. I use deeply saturated colors and textures not only to reveal the surfaces of the structures but also to permeate the emptiness around them. The physical nature of, and energy involved in making large format Monoprints imbues the work with the frank monumentality of its subject matter. Each step of the process, from drawing the image onto the plate, scouring and gouging, inking, and finally, wiping the surface for printing, suffuses the final print with a textural, tactile, physical quality difficult to achieve in other media, creating the perfect balance of color, texture and line.

Drawing is a crucial and integral part of my practice and I always carry a sketchbook, making quick pen and ink sketches or swift watercolor studies of my subject matter. This direct engagement enables me to emphasize the essence of the moment both physically and intellectually. Making use of the sketches when I make my prints allows me to stay true to that initial response, the gut feeling I experienced when I made my initial drawings. Only in that way can I hope to stay true to the emotional reaction of that specific time and place.