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Keeping Up With Jonas

4

Franklin Jonas at work in his studio.

Artist Franklin Jo s looks

JULIE WEINGARDEN

Special to The Jewish News

:ranklin Jonas loves his shapes.
'Circles, squares and triangles.
They are key elements for the
Southfield artist, who spends
hours configuring geometric formulas
for his work. Pretty ironic for a guy
who almost failed math in high school. ,
Even at a young age, Jonas' passion
for art interfered with his studies. "I
always liked to paint, draw and color.
In elementary school, I spent my class
time drawing. The teachers tried to
fail me a couple of times," he says.
In high school, he'd blow off his
studies all year and then hire a tutor
just before finals, learn everything and

Julie Weingarden is a freelance writer

based in Royal Oak.

2/26
1999

76 Detroit Jewish News

ace the exams. Some might say he did-
n't apply himself, but he just "didn't
see the need to follow the rules."
Jonas' brush with failure, however,
may be a precursor of his success to
come. The 28-year-old artist makes his
debut at Pontiac's Galerie Blu March
5-31 with his first-ever one-man show,
The Birth of Matrixism Geostructures
I-X." It opens with an artist's reception
7 p.m. Friday, March 5, at the gallery.
"I've been living in a vacuum for
the past five years, devoting my life to
my art and not really leaving the stu-
dio or having a social life," Jonas says.
"If you have a dream, you have to
completely dedicate yourself."
Especially when you're a complete
unknown.
"No one's ever heard of me," says
Jonas. He's shown his work only to
friends and one other gallery besides

to his first one-man show.

Galerie Blu, whose owner David
Popa, says Jonas, is "kind of a rarity
on the art scene.
"It took me years even to get a
gallery owner to look at my stuff. It's a
business that's as bad as Hollywood,"
says the young artist.
Popa says Jonas won't remain an
unknown. The gallery owner immedi-
ately responded to Jonas' dedication to
his art as well as to the quality of its
execution. "His work is comparable to
the masters in the op-art movement,
Yaacov Agam and Victor Vasarely,"
Popa says. "I truly believe Franklin is an
artistic genius and his work will receive
the artistic recognition it deserves."
Popa plans to represent Jonas after
the show at Galerie Blu closes. There
is a Chicago gallery already interested
in featuring Jonas' work, he says.
The artist uses acrylic paint on linen,

a surface, he explains, that is more
durable than cotton canvas. Though the
colors — vivid shades of red, fuchsia,
lime, orange, blue and yellow — may
appear to be neon to some, Jonas says
the hues he chooses aren't neon at all.
It's just that the paint is chemically pure.
Jonas coined the term "Matrixism"
to describe his art. It's similar to
Neoplasticism, the combination of
geometric forms and lines with bright
colors to create the perception of
depth, but Matrixism is based on the
fusion of color, geometry and logic
and is governed by a strict set of laws.
"What appears to be random is very
organized," Jonas says. The elements work
together to give the illusion of chaos and
order, so the viewer's eye constantly
moves throughout the piece. "I don't
want people to focus on any one section
for an extended period of time," he says.

