Jonathan Paul Fleming, Architect and artist working through careful, iterative processes on art that engages with uncertain experiences of places, things and people to disengage from the noise of the same.
Jonathan Paul Fleming is an Architect and artist born and raised in Northeast Ohio. As a youth, Jonathan studied art in Margaret Styles studio in Canal Fulton, exhibited works in art shows, earned scholarships for his creative work, and developed interest in various media, fine arts and illustration. Jonathan attended Kent State University to earn a Bachelor of Science in Architecture, with a minor in Philosophy, and his professional degree a Bachelor of Architecture. During undergraduate studies he worked for a lumber company and architectural offices in Ohio and Massachusetts. In completing his thesis, Descendents: Research in Architecture, Jonathan earned the Master of Architecture degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Jonathan makes art to experience places, things and people, and to disengage from noise. The process of making is a means to quiet the unfocussed mind. He states, "I imagine inside the work. I make art to study details and get inside of actions and things. My art is a mining operation in that, through iteration, it is intended to glean new lessons to be applied through the descent of one work to the next."
In his artwork, he is interested, primarily, in meaning, uncertainty and absurdity. "The structure and limits of study permit me to generate, as a means to engage in action amidst profound uncertainties. The work is a means to study and learn about the media, the surface, the subject, the object, and the craft. Also fundamental is enjoyment, it is about joy in making."
Ideas of place, tool, repetition, proportion, change, progress, gesture and forethought act as touchstones for the central priority of making. His work is immersed in the place he lives, where he grew up, where he always returns.
In making, he uses a method of careful, iterative study in substantial number, frequently series of 43. Methodically, he works to exhaust possibilities and make decisions. In doing so, he embraces the randomness and serendipity of the process and what unfolds or is revealed. His art is related to his strategic nature and love for ideation.
I am a maker regardless of media, material or scale. Architecture, drawing, sculpture, furniture, painting; chocolate, beeswax, wood, steel, paint, graphite all are means to see the world in which I live, more fully.
- Jonathan Paul Fleming
Photography by Horstman Photography
