The Discerning Eye - Johnny Jonas

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Johnny Jonas

In 2001, with a grant from Arts and Business New Partners initiative, the Discerning Eye was able to organise its first 'Artist in Residence' project and commissioned the painter Johnny Jonas to work at ING's London Headquarters. With Johnny having full access to the trading floor, this was probably the first time that a residency of this nature has operated in City Stockbrokers.

Johnny, 53, who was originally a graduate of the Fine Arts Academy in Perugia, has a rich and varied output ranging from the unforgiving landscapes of war-torn Kosovo, for a canvas commissioned by the Royal Engineers, to a portrait of the late Queen Mother, to mark her 100th year, for the Carlton Club.

For this residency, he was commissioned to paint two canvasses (subject of his choice) along with two quick (one hour) portrait studies of ING employees. His only brief was to work as much as possible 'in public' so that people throughout the organisation could witness what he was doing and ask questions about his work.

Having worked around the building, including the main foyer and on the dealing floor, Johnny was well known by staff and eventually exceeded his brief by delivering three canvasses of City Life (along with the studies for those paintings) and four portrait studies. All the paintings were very well received by ING staff and will now be incorporated into the already impressive ING collection.

′The Trading Floor′ by Johnny Jonas

"Our artist in
residence, Johnny Jonas, recently came in to 60 London Wall so that staff could see him at work - painting two portraits from scratch - and also to display and discuss
'work in progress' on
three large canvases -
a view of the trading floor;
the City at lunchtime;
and a wine bar."

Steve McCubbin
ING intranet

Here Johnny gives us his thoughts on the visit and his work in progress . . . .

"Arriving in the City at 6.30 in the morning is a new experience - quite different to my old days broking at Lloyd\'s when anything before 9.30 just was \'not at all proper\'. I surfed London Wall on a tide of coffee shops and croissants and glided up the main hall to reception where I installed myself with the three large canvasses I've been working on, plus sketches, easels and paints and brushes.

After a while Scott Anderson, an Assistant Supervisor, and I were beginning the first of the portraits I painted that day. I was painting in \'grisaille\', a style of painting which focuses on tone and not colour, using a blob of black paint and a blob of white (and two thousand tones of grey in between...).

The lighting was practically directly overhead, producing dramatic light but not much general light down the head. A few early birds seemed to register our presence but not much more than that could be expected with the impending opening of the markets. We persevered with another coffee.

As the morning and the portrait progressed, I was able to discuss the large paintings with people who were now more relaxed about time and who had stopped to look at the mid-stage of the three paintings which form the core of the Residency. Each subject is painted in a different style and here are my thoughts on each one as it was displayed in the foyer.

The City at Lunchtime

This attempts to suggest the great City 'lunchtime', life about the streets and café bars, urgent errands and shopping to do, and the lulling, dappled sunlight seen about the quadrants and small corners of the City - hardly dejeuner sur l'herbe but out of the office all the same.

Figures come and go against a general background, friends and strangers together, the initial planning of the falling shadows on the paving designed to shimmer with the breeze in the trees and the movement of the people, and there will be more action beyond the foreground figures to take the viewer into the painting and noise of the streets.

The Trading Floor

This is the most figurative of the series, reflecting organisation and order. The painting moves us quickly from the foreground to the 'busyness' about the room, contrasting the vertical standing urgency with the more horizontal rows of monitors which echo the variety of coloured figures and images moving across the screens.

Stage three will be to develop the imagery to include deeper contrasts and accents of colour - and at the same time to include coloured numbers and letters which will give the effect of looking through one of the monitors at the activity of the room.

The City Wine Bar

The last of the series, at the end of the day (hopefully), the legendary 'City Wine Bar'. Using mainly sweeps with a rag, blobs of paint here and there, a suggestion of a bar stool, head and shoulders or a passing waitress, this is a vague impression of figures and noise and light through smoky windows - an image where the viewer makes out certain things in the painting but very little is really 'painted'.

Probably the last stop in an artist's career before going 'abstract', it perhaps reflects the moment in City life as the drinks and images may merge into a blurred canvas. And as surely as I had said it before about 'bringing the roadside to the City', people were staggered, standing behind me, to see a blob of paint leave the palette as paint and arrive on the canvas as a nose. Once seen, never forgotten.

By mid-morning the first portrait sketch was complete and I was introduced to Trevor Salthouse, Head Butler, who very kindly had agreed to stand in for the next portrait.

I took some photographs at various key moments of both paintings and these help to capture the looseness and apparent chaos in the early stages (in case you were not there to see this) as I aim not for detail but the 'massing' of the lighter and darker areas - the detail coming much later, dropping into the now established structure of the head.

There was a great deal of discussion about the large paintings, how they are progressing, what will be developed, many ideas flowing from all parties and what needs to be embodied into them to give the feel that I was looking for and which the people present there identify with.

It all seems to be a long way from my first introduction to the dealing rooms in August, what I have tried to interpret and what I can add to their way of seeing their working environment."

Portraits of ING staff by Johnny Jonas