interview with JonMarc Edwards for Gestalt Magazine 2006 by Ellen Rosner Feig Imagine commuting to work one morning, typical California traffic has left you and other motorists at a standstill at one of the busiest corners of the world, Westwood and Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles. Frustration sets in as your radio delivers the news of another smog alert. You look up and see in front of you a billboard with strange text superimposed over an image of a studio audience. You try to ponder the work in front of your eyes, try to decipher and find meaning in the art above you. This piece, titled "Earth Shattering Yawns" is one in the My Work Is Here billboard series of artist JonMarc Edwards. "The billboard pieces were intended to reach out to people on a large scale," says Edwards. "The scale works well on the Los Angeles landscape as the 'characters' demand attention in an already high volume advertisement environment. "The billboards work on a subliminal level where the viewer recognizes that something is registering [before their eyes] even though they are driving by quickly. It's about pattern recognition and repetition." Very quickly JonMarc Edwards became known as the "Artist who does billboards." With his recent showings in Amsterdam's Art Affairs gallery, Deborah Colton gallery in Houston and the Carl Berg gallery in Los Angeles JonMarc proves he is more than a billboard artist. Best known for his work incorporating words into images, Edwards knew that he would become an artist at an early age. " After a small work I painted in kindergarten was shown in the public library, I realized that making art was something I could do. Unlike many young artists, JonMarc had the full support of his parents. "Living in the Midwest, I was the avant-garde of my suburb. My parents let me take over the basement at home to use as an art studio. In high school I was having exhibitions, creating mural sized drawings, making silk screens and doing artwork for the school newspaper and yearbook. Influenced by time spent in Japan, Edwards' work bears the mark of Japanese culture in its unique use of universal signage, calligraphy and ideograms. "When I came back to the United States and moved to Los Angeles, I became analytical about my work. Although I was still working in all sorts of formats and creating different types of images, I began to morph words into images, creating textual images." Out of this interest Edwards invented the theory of Monosyble, "a reconfiguration of text, compressing words or word sequences into a new single form." In order to clarify this system, the "Five Principles for Reading Monosyble" were created. 1. Each character = one syllable 2. A character may be broken into two halves, upper and lower 3. Largest letter in character is to be read first 4. Smaller upper letter is read before lower larger letter 5. A line bisecting a character indicates two or more syllables occupying one character "Some people don't know where to start with my work, as it can be difficult to access, the viewer must slow down and integrate information. The work is about what is going on now, just like the Impressionist where influenced by the development of photography my work would not exist without the a digital revolution." Edwards composes his collage work on the computer, sends it to a Laser cutter in Orange County who then sends it back for placement on paper. "I compose language from legibility and assemble into illegibility." Take for instance the 1999 Sticker Shock painting, a mixed media piece that preeminently features red and gold text layered over pieces of junk mail stickers. "This piece has a direct relationship to my experience in Japan, " explains Edwards. "I had collected a cacophony of junk mail for a period of over five years ­ foil wrappers, 3-d photo stickers, political and charity stickers. I obsessed and couldn't throw them out. This became 'Sticker Shock', a homage or a critique of consumerism." The inability to rid oneself of things is a consistent theme in the artist's work. In his 2004 exhibition Self-Contained, JonMarc created an installation at the Carl Berg gallery in L.A. using clear fabricated file boxes filled with text, images and accumulated items. "My parents were moving and had cleaned out my room. They had sent me 33 boxes of stuff, I was overwhelmed but I didn't want to throw much of it away, or put it on ebay. The idea was to use fifty to sixty clear filing boxes as a holographic atmosphere that you could walk around and see different points of view, creating a composite portrait of myself." Spirits, an installation in Amsterdam showcased Edwards' ability to play with light and mixed genres. I discussed with the directors that I wanted to do a 'back bar' installation for the gallery. You know, colored bottles, glass shelves, mirrored back wall and wood trim. The reflections were amazing as they spilled out onto the street. It brought in unsuspecting pedestrians who found themselves inside an art gallery". JonMarc prides himself on being a working artist who delves into many different mediums. Recently he finished a screenplay with the Paris based artist Erik Wesselo [from Erik's notes] and is working on a set design for a dance piece, Looming Bias at Art Center in Pasadena, CA. I work everyday and have a very practical side of spending at least six hours a day working. My inspirations come from my family and friends, L.A. both culturally and geographically, plus extensive travel." So what does the future hold for this talent? I have some exciting exhibitions and group shows in Europe and the States coming up this fall. I am doing a series of portraits incorporating a new text collage method derived from the 'sitters' personal experience. And other big projects that are a bit premature to announce, so keep in touch.