Jonni Cheatwood: Navigating the Unseen Through Materiality and Memory 

Jonni Cheatwood is a self-taught contemporary artist whose innovative practice interweaves mixed media, abstraction, and personal narrative to explore the multifaceted themes of identity, anonymity, and memory. He constructs his canvases as quilt-like assemblages of sewn fabrics, including denim, burlap, linen, and found textiles, challenging traditional notions of the painted surface by introducing rich textures and histories inherent in the materials. Cheatwood, at times, infuses his work with organic hues by dyeing these substrates with natural plants from his environment, deepening the connection between his art and its surroundings. Upon this tactile foundation, he employs bold gestural marks in oil and acrylic paints, echoing the spontaneity of Abstract Expressionism while drawing early influence from street art and artists such as Basquiat, Francis Bacon, Baldessari, and Karel Appel. 

Cheatwood's artistic evolution bridges his earlier exclusively abstract paintings with his more recent figurative works, creating a cohesive narrative that reflects his ongoing exploration of form and emotion. His signature loose brushstrokes and dynamic mark-making act as a personal lexicon—a form of non-descriptive writing that connects shapes and colors within the composition. In his figurative pieces, he often obscures the faces of his subjects, rendering them as condensed abstract works. This deliberate act addresses themes of identity and anonymity, akin to donning a mask to either conceal oneself or navigate the external world. By abstracting the identities of his figures, Cheatwood universalizes the human experience, suggesting that beneath visible expressions lie unseen emotions and complexities. 

Central to Cheatwood's oeuvre is a profound engagement with personal narrative and familial history. Drawing inspiration from family photographs—mundane yet evocative moments preserved through the diligence of his parents—he honors his heritage by translating these captured instances onto canvas. Sewing his canvases together parallels the act of piecing together memories, each fragment contributing to a larger tapestry of collective and individual identity. Through his innovative fusion of materials, personal narratives, and the blending of abstraction with figuration, Cheatwood offers a fresh and compelling perspective that contributes meaningfully to contemporary artistic discourse, while thoughtfully engaging with the historical canon. As Cheatwood dives deeper into figuration, his loose brushwork and gestural abstraction subtlety convey the full range of emotion experienced by the subjects in his portraits, as well as the viewers of these scenes. The texture of his brushstrokes combined with the sharp lines of their forms has allowed the artist to create characters that are at once unrecognizable while still universally relatable. 

As a self-taught artist, Cheatwood’s process is one of experimentation and steady evolution over time. It is a dynamic undertaking that spans mediums and aesthetics, creating textured and color-filled pieces that greet the viewer head-on, ready to engage in conversation. Cheatwood’s works evoke a warm, nostalgic sensation like browsing through one’s family book photographs, and although the people depicted in his works aren’t specifically always based on his own relatives or friends, the works are still about people he can relate to. 

Jonni Cheatwood was born in 1986 in Thousand Oaks, California. He graduated from Arizona State in 2011. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California