Natisa Jones

January 11, 2021

Tell us about your practice.

My name is Natisa. I am a visual artist. Making art has always been a cathartic process for me. I document my life through writing, painting, drawing, and making videos.

Your visual language is both figurative and abstract. How did you come to that?

I’ve always felt an urgency to document my thoughts or feelings as close to raw as possible, be it through painting, drawing, writing, or video. It’s been that way since I was a kid. With painting and abstraction, you’re able to connect and reveal the unconscious in a very direct way. There’s a physicality to it. This allows me to be violent, loving, fragile, and erratic, right then and there with little space for calculation or pretense.

When I learned about action painters and abstract expressionism during my studies, it just felt like home. The figure has always been an anchor point. I need it to contextualize or conclude whatever I was reflecting on in the process. It gives me direction and allows me to find myself and recognize some sort of humanity. When it’s solely strokes and color, I tend to get a bit lost and it becomes tricks on a surface.

Has your practice changed in your moves from Australia to Indonesia to the Netherlands?

I think it naturally grows but in terms of process, I don’t think it’s changed since I was a kid. I’m more conscious of what I am doing, but the basic formula of my practice remains more or less the same. It’s been about documenting my life, pulling it apart, putting it back together, through different mediums, in the hopes that something clicks. I think being culturally disoriented has definitely influenced this way of working. Putting unlikely things together to create some form of hybrid expression, as a way of making sense of things. The process hasn’t really changed but hopefully, my skills get sharper as the subject matters naturally get heavier and more complex, the older I get and the more I dig.

What has been inspiring you lately?

I’ve been indulging in a lot of music and movies about heartbreak and family dynamics. You know, there are just key moments in life that keep coming back to you whether you like it or not. I think it’s because deep down, you know it’s shaping you, or can shape you if you let it. So as you revisit them at different points in your life, you understand another part of it each time.

Since the approach I have with my work has always been one of a personal nature, I realize sitting down with your set of things when you’re 20 is one thing, and sitting with it at 30 is another. So consuming content by other artists who work in a similar cathartic manner has not only been therapeutic but inspiring.

What’s next for you?

You know what, to be honest – I think I’m just learning to embrace uncertainty. No matter what we plan, I don’t think the world is really in a place where one can confidently predict what is next for any of us. But I’m grateful to have a couple of projects on the way and some exhibitions planned. Let’s hope 2021 kindly facilitates. ❤️

Natisa Jones

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