VISI Magazine interview: "ARTISTS WE LOVE: JONATHAN SILVERMAN"

Excerpt below, for full interview click here: https://visi.co.za/artists-we-love-jonathan-silverman/

"Cape Town-based Jonathan Silverman is a visual artist who works primarily in the mediums of painting, digital painting and video. His career spans a host of interesting cities and residencies, including one he just completed at Palazzo Monti in Brescia, Italy. We caught up with

him to find out more about it, his exploration of the space between virtual and physical reality, what inspires his work and more.

Who are you and what drives your work as an artist and a human? Personal identity is complex. You can avoid the question for a long time before it comes back to bite you in the behind. I believe it’s thanks to living these past few years in South Africa that I have started asking myself more honest questions about my own identity. I’m addicted to observing people, and like observing a tree or watching a dance, I try to become and perhaps embody that which I observe. So I fall in love with people and places, and I try to become them, momentarily. I like to think that empathy can come from this. The central subject of my work is Nature – what is it, and in what way do we as humans think we are separate or a part of it? Its complexity, strangeness and wonder make me want to continue making and exploring its impossible mystery. Essentially though, it is the work itself and the surprises it brings that become the engine for creating new work. ..."