Jon Elliott: Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting

Left to Right: Pistola, Favorite Things Series, Superior, and Battle Axe, Favorite Things Series by Jon Elliott

While Jon Elliott’s concentration is in painting, his works spans many forms and mediums. His Favorite Things series, featuring fragmented and distorted images of pin-up girls, is created digitally before being printed onto canvas. Using appropriated images, Elliott combines sexually charged images of pin-up girls with masculine weapons such as machine guns or axes. His compositions have an “all-over” sense, which keeps the viewers’ eyes from settling on one focal point. This also creates an intricate sense of depth and layering throughout the surface of the piece.

Also showcasing Elliott’s ability to work in a variety of materials is his mixed media photograph sculpture Superior. Using a large amount of small photographs, about 4 by 6 inches, Elliott recreates a landscape by suspending the photographs from the ceiling via fishing line. Different views of the same location, which has personal significance to the artist, create a single composition by layering the photos at different depths and heights. Hanging beneath the photos to anchor them are rocks and pebbles from the featured location. The hanging rocks echo the closest point to the viewer in the photographs, incorporating function with design and creating a floor to ceiling installation.

B2S2 and Weird Fishes from Back to School Series by Jon Elliott. 

Elliott’s exhibit also features a more traditional concept of painting with his Back to School series, which all share the slightly abstracted form of hammerhead sharks. His oil painting B2S2 features a range of colored squares from bright orange and yellows to deep green and blues as a background for the creatures, while the larger Weird Fishes has the bright orange forms swimming across a blue-green cityscape.

Jon Elliott is graduating at the end of the semester with his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing. His work, along with the other three graduates of the BFA program, will be on display until December 13th, with a reception on December 5th from 4:30 to 7:30 pm.


Amy Gibas
Gallery Assistant
University Art Gallery
Saginaw valley State University