{"id":80500,"date":"2025-05-31T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T16:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/?p=80500"},"modified":"2025-05-22T10:26:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T14:26:05","slug":"cover-artist-jon-sours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/arts\/cover-artist-jon-sours\/","title":{"rendered":"Cover Artist: <\/strong> Jon Sours"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Queue. Jon Sours, artist<\/p><\/div>\n

By Gina Malone<\/p>\n

In high school days, Jon Sours was keen on studying filmmaking. Art, also an interest, he describes as, at that time, a \u201csomewhat less exciting pursuit.\u201d During college, he worked at the Dundee Theater, a single-screen art house in Omaha, NE. \u201cBut gradually,\u201d he says, \u201cthe scales were tipping more in favor of the painting courses I was taking at school and less so with the seemingly unrealistic pursuit of filmmaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Pointe. Jon Sours, artist<\/p><\/div>\n

He graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a degree in painting, and eventually found himself in Asheville working at Blue Spiral 1 Gallery. \u201cI worked at the gallery for 16 years and learned a lot about the art world,\u201d he says, \u201call while slowly tinkering away at my own paintings and works on paper. About a year and a half ago, I decided to step away from my job and pursue artmaking full time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sours creates two bodies of work: figurative paintings and intricate collaged works on paper. \u201cThe collage work is primarily made from images found in National Geographic magazine, as well as the other assorted National Geographic publications,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He owns a stash of hundreds and hundreds of issues. \u201cI methodically go through these page by page and tear out anything that might be useful\u2014people, animals, random objects\u2014and then carefully and sometimes painstakingly cut out each subject with a large pair of scissors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Large trays keep these elements organized by category, size and subject matter. \u201cBuilding the collage, or \u2018stacker\u2019 as I refer to them, involv<\/p>\n

\"\"

Extra Special Hot. Jon Sours, artist<\/p><\/div>\n

es finding relationships between these figures and animals that had not previously existed, linking and stacking them into tall pyramid shapes, or sometimes long and winding queues.\u201d<\/p>\n

What results from Sours\u2019 creative mind are complex configurations of figures connected to and balancing upon one another in strange, lovely and playful ways\u2014one figure standing upon the shoulders, back or head of another, or hands reaching across spaces to clasp one another.<\/p>\n

Fellow artist Tamie Beldue has great respect for the art that Sours creates. \u201cHis paintings demonstrate an excellent command of the medium with nuanced subtleties of color, form and juxtaposition of found and observational imagery, simultaneously balancing realism and surrealism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sours\u2019 stacker pieces are being displayed as part of Blue Spiral 1\u2019s Collection exhibition, running through Wednesday, June 25, in the Lower Level Gallery. \u201cIn his Stacker series, Sours transforms found imagery from National Geographic into intricately collaged compositions that are both playful and intentional, words that could also be used to describe Sours himself,\u201d says Blair Guggenheim, assistant director of Blue Spiral 1. \u201cIn each piece, figures are meticulously sourced, cut and arranged to form surreal yet cohesive visual narratives\u2014such as a gymnast straddling a meteorite, seamlessly linked to a toddler, a squirrel monkey and a hand-standing figure atop a parasol. Through these unexpected links, Sours creates a delicate choreography of interconnected forms, suggesting that the stasis of the world is, in fact, held together by a dynamic and collective balance of individual forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

White Wedding. Jon Sours, artist<\/p><\/div>\n

For Sours, there is the visual, process-centered aspect to his stacker works but also existing alongside, he hopes, shades of meaning inherent in the configurations. \u201cWhile I like to think they could exist simply as beautiful and aesthetically pleasing compositions, they also could be seen as a commentary on the interconnectedness of life and\/or as a celebration of the diversity and beauty of life on earth,\u201d he says. \u201cThat being said, I hope there is also a sense of humor and absurdity that comes across in the sometimes playful or haphazard manner in which these people and animals are stacked together, sometimes seemingly moments from collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n

See Jon Sours\u2019 work through June 25 in the exhibition <\/em>Collection at Blue Spiral 1. Learn more at BlueSpiral1.com<\/a> and at JonSours.com<\/a>, and follow Sours on Instagram @jonsours<\/a>. Blue Spiral 1 is located at 38 Biltmore Avenue, Asheville. Hours are Sunday through Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sours creates two bodies of work: figurative paintings and intricate collaged works on paper. \u201cThe collage work is primarily made from images found in National Geographic magazine, as well as the other assorted National Geographic publications,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":80504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-visual-arts"],"yoast_head":"\nCover Artist: Jon Sours - The Laurel of Asheville<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sours creates two bodies of work: figurative paintings and intricate collaged works on paper. \u201cThe collage work is primarily made from images found in National Geographic magazine, as well as the other assorted National Geographic publications,\u201d he says.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/arts\/cover-artist-jon-sours\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cover Artist: Jon Sours - 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