Jason Fox fuses referents from pop culture, religion, and science fiction in images and assemblages where the real and austere overlap with the absurd and fantastical.
Read MoreStylistic influences of Pop art and Abstract Expressionism are regenerated with simplified, cartoonish illustration techniques often seen in comics or fan art. Fox has stated: 'From the start I was interested in a kind of cyborg/extreme figuration. ... I wanted to blow the figure up and rebuild it in a Frankenstein-ish way. Art history and comics were the body parts.'
Fox's paintings of the 1990s often employed alternative readymade substrates in the vein of Pop art, while drawing inspiration from objects of pop culture including Marvel comics and album covers. Works such as Natty Dread (1990), Floyd (1992), and Drosion (1993) are painted in enamels and acrylics on unzipped sleeping bags, with loose, repetitive brushwork reminiscent of Jackson Pollock's expressive 'All-over Painting' approach.
Fox's distinct use of the colour red in his paintings and drawings can be traced back to the beginnings of his practice, where it dominated abstract portraits like Drecoya (1995), as well as in more detailed fantastical scenes, such as Shaolin (1996).
Fox's portraits channel an intensity that recalls the practice of Francis Bacon, achieved through an often grotesque abstraction of form and a decisive command of colour and paint application—ranging from vigorous, messy strokes to delicate and defined renderings. Later works experiment with opacities, with layers of watered-down paint generating the effect of looking at a lenticular image—as seen in Dragon Turns on Itself (2019) or Fierce Crossness (2020), where images of dragons are playfully superimposed on human faces.
Fox's portraits often revisit the same subjects, as though constantly reinventing their visual identities—with famous figures such as The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Tom Petty, and Barack Obama featuring repeatedly throughout Fox's oeuvre. Marley on Obama (2010) presents an uncanny transposition of Bob Marley and Barack Obama in blood-red monochrome, in an ambiguous cultural commentary or a comical reimagining of representational stereotypes.
Other subjects of Fox's paintings include the artist's dog, as well as various religious and fictional creatures, which are often hybridised to form entirely novel beings. On Fox's 2014 exhibition, Supernaturalism at CANADA, New York, Kate Liebman wrote for The Brooklyn Rail: 'There is little doubt that Fox is intrigued by peculiar, idiosyncratic combinations that can seem far afield: Obama/Marley, Vishnu/angel, figuration/colour field.'
Jason Fox's sculptures range from pseudo-ritualistic assemblages such as Drixen (1991), in which bags of rocks are arranged around a wooden totem capped with a black wig, to cast objects that evoke medical or scientific associations, illustrated in the concrete and resin Monument for Destruction (2004).
