Espanola196526 × 20"Oil on boardBequest of Gary W. Hager1991.31.10152766789Jon SerlPaintingsCopyright for this work is under review. in red paint lower left: 'JON' Lake ElsinoreLake ElsinoreUnited StatesCaliforniaPaintingsLake Elsinore
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information. To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgPAINTINGJon Serl’s first hasty attempts at painting were made about the time of World War II. By this point, Serl had already experienced a full life, working in vaudeville, film, and as a laborer in California and the American Southwest. A pacifist, he fled to Canada during both world wars to avoid military service. He was married three times, divorced just as many. Eventually Serl settled in several California towns, including Laguna Beach, San Juan Capistrano, and Lake Elsinore, and devoted his time to painting.
Executed in oil on found surfaces, Serl’s paintings are often brash, bold, and expressionistic. He explored a whole range of techniques with paint and brush; a true painter’s painter, the artist applied paint in a thick impasto as well as in light washes of color. A sensitive use of color, characteristic of Serl’s best artworks, only heightens the drama of his paintings, which abound with characters. The figures that people his paintings often express dualities: male and female, nature and technology, good and evil, parent and child. Often compared to theatrical stages, his canvases usually have an unknown narrative exploring both inner and outer worlds, the emotional as well as the physical.Jon Serl led a full, peripatetic life following a variety of occupations before he began to paint, around the time of World War II. After working in vaudeville, in film, and as a laborer in the Southwest, Serl settled in California and increasingly devoted his time to painting. His highly expressionistic works are usually executed in oil on found surfaces with thick, agitated impastos. By turns dreamlike and nightmarish, the paintings project a charged atmosphere that draws the viewer into the cryptic, unfolding narrative.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Espanola," exhibition label for Jubilation|Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2012.19651965 1991 31 1 Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information. To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgPAINTINGJon Serl’s first hasty attempts at painting were made about the time of World War II. By this point, Serl had already experienced a full life, working in vaudeville, film, and as a laborer in California and the American Southwest. A pacifist, he fled to Canada during both world wars to avoid military service. He was married three times, divorced just as many. Eventually Serl settled in several California towns, including Laguna Beach, San Juan Capistrano, and Lake Elsinore, and devoted his time to painting.
Executed in oil on found surfaces, Serl’s paintings are often brash, bold, and expressionistic. He explored a whole range of techniques with paint and brush; a true painter’s painter, the artist applied paint in a thick impasto as well as in light washes of color. A sensitive use of color, characteristic of Serl’s best artworks, only heightens the drama of his paintings, which abound with characters. The figures that people his paintings often express dualities: male and female, nature and technology, good and evil, parent and child. Often compared to theatrical stages, his canvases usually have an unknown narrative exploring both inner and outer worlds, the emotional as well as the physical.Jon Serl led a full, peripatetic life following a variety of occupations before he began to paint, around the time of World War II. After working in vaudeville, in film, and as a laborer in the Southwest, Serl settled in California and increasingly devoted his time to painting. His highly expressionistic works are usually executed in oil on found surfaces with thick, agitated impastos. By turns dreamlike and nightmarish, the paintings project a charged atmosphere that draws the viewer into the cryptic, unfolding narrative.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Espanola," exhibition label for Jubilation|Rumination: Life, Real and Imagined. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2012.