Jason Jagel is an artist whose work inspires me to look at the world through the eyes of a very wise child. His work is incredibly visceral, colorful and adventurous, and he works in many different mediums to boot. Thanks to Illustration Mundo, I came across his piece “Astronaut,” featured below and had to learn more. Feast your eyes on just a few of his pieces below, and then visit his site and/or his profile on Illustration Mundo. You can also find his work in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The UCLA Hammer Museum and the Portland Museum of Art, among others.
Amidst Sunshine and Rain
This piece originates as one part of an ambiguous six-part story created for a SF Arts Commission public art project, “Market St. Kiosk Poster Series.” However, a further inspiration was an “in the rain” etching I made back in 1992 while in school at the California College of Arts And Crafts.
Astronaut
From my series of “fictional record covers.” A tribute to the crack UK group The Heliocentrics and their debut album.
‘Quiet Season’ sculpture
My paper sculptures are originally inspired by natural history museum dioramas (seen in my childhood at the Boston Museum of Science and the NY Natural History Museum) and antique mechanical arcade games and peep shows (SF’s Musee de Mechanique back when it was at the Clif House).
“Heaven Scent,” 2003, 38 x 50″ is one of a number of “stoned funk philosophically rebellious love songs” I painted that year, a move inspired by the crate digging, funk scholarship & fictional autobiography of characters such as Dudley Perkins, Madlib, DOOM, Edan and others. The upper left corner was used for the cover art of Dudley Perkins’ single “washedbrainsyndrome,” an ill piece of comic-narrative, neck-breaking, strings-laced, “jailhouse funk.”
I’m a huge fan of Dudley Perkins’ early stuff -it’s total Curtis Mayfield / Sly Stone / righteous and funky, imperfect prophet vibes- so it was natural that in my pretend world I am his go-to collaborator. Check out one of his earliest Declaime cuts, “Never Ending,” a 12″ on MyMan Recordings in 2000. I couldn’t get enough of this song back then and it still moves me. Having a true emotional experience as the process of making something is the ultimate for me. If I can create something that moves me then I know I’ve done right.
Visit Jason Jagel’s Site
