JonesLight

Censorship. I’m currently working on several series of paintings but one of them is about censorship. As seen recently with proposed laws such as SOPA, the tendency and desire to censor is still very present in our most modern and democratic societies despite the existence of higher laws meant to guarantee rights of expression and free speech. I’m working on this series to understand first hand how violent censorship can be psychologically speaking from the point of view of the person whose speech is censored. Street art, graffiti allows me to fully express any idea without restraint. It’s the most natural form of art, a traditionally rebellious art, to use to explore how censorship affects the censored even more than the person who will never know there’s been an act of censorship. Once I’ve completed the graffiti, I then simply paint over the work leaving questions, hints, transparencies and patches of what once was. It usually takes me a several days to mentally prepare myself to ban what I’ve painted. Each experience has been quite troubling. Take a good look because this painting has been “censored” so you’ll never see it “live”.