Work samples

  • TheScorpion'sTale_JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheScorpion'sTale_JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 12"x16" image size, 18"x22" paper size, 2017
  • MyIdolTheThief_JBT_Baker.jpg
    MyIdolTheThief_JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 12"x16" image size 18"x"22 paper size, 2017
  • baker_thomasjonathan16.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan16.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan25.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan25.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"

About Jonathan

Baltimore City
Jonathan Thomas is the Chair of the Printmaking Department at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, Maryland. Previously, he taught at the University of Miami in Miami, FL and Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana. Jonathan received his MFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and a BS in Biology from Wake Forest University. He has shown both nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at Trudi Gallery in Los Angeles, the Bas Fisher Invitational… more

The Sign

The Sign is a suite of nine intaglio prints created in 2017. They are housed in a custom clamshell box and editioned to 12. The prints are inspired by the W. Somerset Maugham book, The Moon and Sixpence (1919), which tells the story of Charles Strickland, a middle-aged stockbroker, who abandons his wife and childrenabruptly to pursue his desire to become an artist. Loosely based on the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is Maugham's ode to the powerful forces behind creative genius. The prints refer to a life of lost love and obsessive pursuits, fortunate encounters and calculated risk, and ultimately ends on a one simple, small bet. 
  • TheSign_JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheSign_JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 8"x6" image size, 16"x14" paper size, 2017
  • TheBeach__JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheBeach__JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 8"x6" image size, 16"x14" paper size, 2017
  • TheWindow__JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheWindow__JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 8"x6" image size, 16"x14" paper size, 2017
  • TheFlame_JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheFlame_JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 8"x6" image size, 16"x14" paper size, 2017
  • TheRing_JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheRing_JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 8"x6" image size, 16"x14" paper size, 2017
  • TheFlash_JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheFlash_JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 8"x6" image size, 16"x14" paper size, 2017
  • TheCurtain_JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheCurtain_JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 8"x6" image size, 16"x14" paper size, 2017
  • TheWheel__JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheWheel__JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 8"x6" image size, 16"x14" paper size, 2017
  • TheBet_JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheBet_JBT_Baker.jpg
    Intaglio, 8"x6" image size, 16"x14" paper size, 2017
  • TheSignCase_JBT_Baker.jpg
    TheSignCase_JBT_Baker.jpg
    Portfolio box for "The Sign"

Ten Minutes On a Foggy Night / Group 1

The project Ten Minutes On a Foggy Night began shortly after I arrived in Baltimore from Miami, FL, where I had lived the previous seven years, and I consider it my first response to my new city. It took over a year to complete but its foundation was laid in a single morning through a visit to the venerable Baltimore institution, The Book Thing. I am a collector of printed matter, and I suppose by default, a book collector, and The Book Thing’s simple but profound mission to put unwanted books “into the hands of those that want them” perfectly suited my archeological spirit.[1] It became a discovery space that eased my geographic transition by connecting me, albeit indirectly, to the people of Baltimore through shared objects and the words/images held within.
 
I don’t use the term “archeological” for effect, quite literally my process for engaging with The Book Thing required surveying, excavation and analysis, all for the purpose of learning about the past to inform the present. I was interested in the range of unusual material culled from the bookshelves but also in the extreme limitation imposed by navigating such a specific space for a specific time. As a result, the material I collected had the quality of being both deeply personal and ubiquitous, both distinct and random, both modern and antiquated. Ultimately it inspired me to create a new series of images, imbued with the same binary sensibilities. The system for image creation, largely intuitive, involved the translation, association, re-contextualization and deconstruction of both the form and content of the source material. The process resulted in 66 discreet images created with water-based inks using pochoir and screenprint techniques on paper. The images can be read individually but their full potential is claimed only through their consideration in relation to one another.
 
The project’s title, Ten Minutes on a Foggy Night, takes it’s name from an early passage in H.G. Wells’s Victorian science fiction classic, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), in which the character Montgomery, in conversation with the novel’s protagonist, Prendick, nearly reveals the reasons by which he became outcast from civilization, living a life he does not wish to live. The elusive specifics however, lost in a fog, are never subsequently revealed, framed only by the harsh vagueness of chance.  It’s a meaningful omission that ultimately enriches the novel’s pervasive despair. The phrase is a time (ten minutes) space (fog) construct, symbolic of the elusive reasons, or rationale, by which meaningful things occur, and furthermore the difficulty of self-determination. The phrase is a symbol of not only the chance operations at play in the creation of this artwork, but much like in the book, the power of excision as a tactic to engage the reader/viewer.

[1] http://www.bookthing.org
  • baker_thomasjonathan49.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan49.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"
  • baker_thomasjonathan44.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan44.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"
  • baker_thomasjonathan43.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan43.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"
  • baker_thomasjonathan36.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan36.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"
  • baker_thomasjonathan27.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan27.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"
  • baker_thomasjonathan26.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan26.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"
  • baker_thomasjonathan6.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan6.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"
  • baker_thomasjonathan4.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan4.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"
  • baker_thomasjonathan45.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan45.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"
  • baker_thomasjonathan25.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan25.jpg
    Screen print 22"x30"

Ten Minutes On a Foggy Night / Group 2

  • baker_thomasjonathan39.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan39.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan41.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan41.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan38.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan38.jpg
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    baker_thomasjonathan37.jpg
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    baker_thomasjonathan22.jpg
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    baker_thomasjonathan18.jpg
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    baker_thomasjonathan17.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan16.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan16.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan1.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan1.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan47.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan47.jpg

Ten Minutes On a Foggy Night / Group 3

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    baker_thomasjonathan42.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan40.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan40.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan8.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan8.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan35.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan35.jpg
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    baker_thomasjonathan29.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan5.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan5.jpg
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    baker_thomasjonathan2.jpg
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    baker_thomasjonathan10.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan3.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan3.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan9.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan9.jpg

Ten Minutes On A Foggy Night / Group 4

  • baker_thomasjonathan15.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan15.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan48.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan48.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan14.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan14.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan33.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan33.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan13.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan13.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan32.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan32.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan31.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan31.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan12.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan12.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan30.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan30.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan11.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan11.jpg

Ten Minutes On A Foggy Night / Group 5

  • baker_thomasjonathan7.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan7.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan46.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan46.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan34.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan34.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan28.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan28.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan24.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan24.jpg
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    baker_thomasjonathan23.jpg
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    baker_thomasjonathan21.jpg
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    baker_thomasjonathan20.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan19.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan19.jpg
  • baker_thomasjonathan50.jpg
    baker_thomasjonathan50.jpg