TFST Artist Feature: Andrew “Android” Jones
Android Jones is a true modern artist, one who works ceaselessly to find the voice of his time, using the tools from the frontier of a designer’s imagination and taking all elements in hand as a visionary to seek the living frontier.
He stands in a short list of artists as the heir apparent to the visionary work of Alex Grey, with whom he has often collaborated. He has worked as a teacher, and live art performer where he uses his tools and talent to make instant miracles of art; reading the room and translating it to a master work.
From Andrew’s creative vortex comes some of the best translations of experience and fantasy brought to the perceivable mind. His art is inspiring and iconic and shows the true breadth of the imagination. In his own words:
“Jones draws his inspiration from the edge of reality to the corners of human perception. For Android the true medium of art is the mind. He translates the electrical impulses of creativity and imagination directly into an interface powered by light and energy.”
It took a few months to get the conversation going with Andrew to ask him to make art for our film, but finally one night I got the chance to tell him the story of the future and Starhawk’s vision and the opportunity that it holds — how important it feels to the world, how “of our time,” and how much it is a personal mission for me. I attempted to share the feeling of possibility and prophesy that we are calling upon: a film envisioning a world where people get along deeply in their diversity and are able to face down the war machine with something other than weapons.
By the time we’d hung up the phone, I was confident that Andrew would bring the visual world of The Fifth Sacred Thing to life.
Andrew tells a story of sitting up late in the night on one of the pieces for the project: After taking a walk under the cool moon he came back to his seat to continue his work. Just as he began the central image of Maya in the picture, a graceful form distant and requiring great delicacy, a moth landed on his hand. It stayed there during the entire process of him painting the central figures of the painting — and as soon as Maya was complete, the moth flew away.
It is this kind of magic that we are calling on and drawing from to create this film, and we are beyond honored that Android Jones is a part of the creation.
Andrew Jones embarked on an artist’s path at an early age. Following long years of drawing in isolation on a family farm in Boulder, Colorado, at 14 he enrolled in the Denver Figure Drawing League. Four years later, he went on to study under Elvie Davis at the Boulder Academy of Fine Arts, with a focus on traditional academic drawings and cast studies. He continued on to higher education at the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, where he pursued a bachelor in Fine Arts.
There, he was introduced to a wide array of creative digital possibilities, and he chose to dedicate his creative energies to the open horizons of digital art making. While in Florida, Andrew also attended the University of South Tampa Medical School, where he gained an ever-greater appreciation for the rich complexity of the internal human form first hand at the end of a scalpel.
After Florida, he traded in his scalpel for a Wacom pen and went on to envision and design creative worlds for companies such as Industrial Light and Magic and Nintendo. In 2003, Andrew was a co-founder in a revolutionary on-line art community called ConceptArt.Org that continues to support an active on-line social network of over 180,000 members around the world.
Alongside an elite group of artists, in 2005 Andrew co-founded the studio Massive Black Inc. that has earned a reputation for being one of the most influential art and design resources for the entertainment industry with active offices in San Francisco and Shanghai. Andrew was creative director of the company until mid 2007.
In 2007 Andrew embarked on a new career working alongside electronic musicians as a live digital painter and expanding his art studio to encompass theater stages, corporate events, as well as music and art festivals around the world. Andrew has now taken his art out of the studio and onto the stage performing live at festivals, from the high rises of Tokyo, the great expanses of China to the deserts of Burning Man. His creative domain includes: forests, clubs and ample theaters, touring with the worlds top underground DJs and bands (such as Bassnectar, Glitch Mob, Tipper and Bluetech).
Over the years Andrew has continued as a digital art evangelist and accomplished art educator through a series of events, workshops, and online video tutorials in order to inspire and contribute to an emerging new culture of digital artists throughout the galaxy.
His work is a hybrid of academic training, emerging technology and the mystical experience, bringing together a mixture of archetypal mythology and contemporary magic.
His style is born from a fascination of dreams, having always been attracted to esoteric knowledge and information. “There are so many mysteries present in our world, some hidden, others undiscovered. These two subjects (surrealism and esotericism) come out naturally in my work because they’re often in my consciousness. Images are how I choose to communicate and the paintings become a visual conversation that helps raise my awareness.” In the East Andrew Jones has been heralded as “The apocalyptic art shaman”.
Andrew has used his internet portal to launch a series of highly acclaimed art workshops, and has traveled the world teaching art to students from Berlin, Romania, Amsterdam, Paris, Montreal, Texas, Florida, Seattle, San Francisco and beyond.
Please encourage Andrew to share MORE of his art with this film — share this post far and wide and let him know how much fans of the book love his work!