JonOne — John Andrew Perello, b. 1963 — was born in Harlem to Dominican parents and began writing graffiti on the subway cars of New York in the early 1980s, at the same moment and in the same environment that produced Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and the generation of artists who transformed street culture into one of the most significant movements in contemporary art history.
He moved to Paris in 1987 and has been based there since — a move that placed him at the intersection of the New York graffiti tradition and the European painting establishment, and that gave his practice the formal and institutional context in which it has fully developed. His calligraphic abstract canvases bring the energy and gesture of graffiti into direct dialogue with the traditions of abstract expressionism — the drip, the splatter, the gestural mark deployed with the fluency of someone who has been making significant marks on significant surfaces for four decades.
His institutional recognition is considerable. He has created murals for the Louvre and the Palais Royal. His work is held in the permanent collection of the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris. He has exhibited globally and collaborated with leading cultural institutions and brands across Europe, Asia, and the United States.
His BioMimétisme canvas and Spectre City original painting, available through Creed Gallery, represent his practice at two distinct scales and registers — the large-format canvas as immersive experience, the smaller work as concentrated statement of the same visual intelligence. Available through Creed Gallery, Ascot, for collectors across Berkshire, Sunningdale, Wentworth, Surrey, and London.
