Jarmon Fonville is a young African American artist residing in New Bern, North Carolina whose works often utilizes texts, symbolism, pop cultural references, and diptych contrast. Working in acrylic, spray paint, and other mixed mediums, he has been featured in several gallery exhibitions in the area, including the Juneteenth exhibit at Bank of the Arts in 2019 and 2020. Craven Arts Council’s Gallery Director, Jonathan Burger, interviewed Jarmon about his career so far, his future goals, and what these exhibits have meant to him.
Where are from and what’s your background?
I am from North Carolina. And I say that because I went to elementary school in Greensboro, NC, and I spent my summers with my grandmother in Tarboro, NC. And those are like two very different, urban and rural areas. I went to middle school in Tarboro, and I didn’t come to Havelock and this area until my mother married into the military and I went to Havelock High School. It’s given me a chance to see a lot of different things and experience a lot of different cultures.
How’d you get your start in art, did you have any formal training?
My experience with art is like a love story. You know how music artists and other people are in love with art? I am in love with art. It developed when I was really young, I was like any other kids, doing some doodles on my paper, and I’m sitting there looking at those doodles, and I’m like wow, that’s amazing. And I would watch a lot of animation, Looney Tunes and traditional animation, and I read a lot of manga and comic books and things. All of that pretty much poured fuel on the fire, and really made me up my game and want to do something with it. So by the time I was in middle school I was selling my Dragon Ball Z pictures for one or two dollars. And people were buying my drawings and writing their name on them and telling people they drew them. And even though I didn’t know that at the time, I was just hype off the fact that somebody wanted my art. From there I did try to focus on art in school, I couldn’t focus on school itself, but I could focus on the art part. Mr. Krasikski, Ms. Synder at Havelock High, they were some of the best art teachers I could ask for, because they were so knowledgeable. Once I got out of high school I went to Craven Community College, and I’m trying to fine tune those skills there. Now I’m just one year away from getting my AFA.
Are there any jobs outside of art you think helped you grow skills useful to your art?
Me and jobs are one of these where I want to do work that means something, and I want to do it with my hands. So I try to focus on my art as much as I can and what I want to do career wise, and every other job that I had, whether it’s been Dominos, welding, cabinetry, or typing and such, I did all the jobs that I could have, but focused on my skill set, and that’s my hands. So most of my jobs knowledge wise haven’t dealt with art, it’s the sort of thing I’m just waiting to get out of there and do art, but it’s gotten my hands to the point where I can continuously and vigorously do the things I can do.
Is there a theme through you work? Or do you change themes?
There is definitely a theme through all my work, and it’s a thing I haven’t verbally been able to tell people exactly what I do. It’s the sort of thing where you have to see it. It’s like the George Floyd thing, where people can tell you about it, but when you see the video it impacts you a little bit differently. My art is really a representation of what a young black boy would see and go through and come into contact with in his day to day life. The main reason the premise has been about that is because my parents didn’t have the best relationship; I didn’t see my dad for a long time, a very long time. Up until now, I haven’t seen my son in probably over a decade. I find that a lot of the problems that stem from myself and even within my culture is a disconnect from father and son. When there is a disconnect from father and son there is an inability to leave on generational wealth. When I do my art, I really just focus on what it means to me, as that young black kid. I paid attention to every real feeling that I felt when I was by myself. I felt like if my dad was there, you know, what could I get from him? For me it’s a generational thing to where what I do and the things I do for my kids and what I want to express is the same things that you would see 10-20 years ago. The fact is, our kids are going to know more about the things happening in this generation more than they would in history, because our history is misconstrued. How can you say this thing is historically relevant? And then you have to disband the whole unit because they’re bad. It’s a lot of hypocrisy and a lot of false truths and a lot of things that they just can’t believe in, but I’m trying to reach them in a way to where they can understand the politics but in the way that I had to understand them and figure them out myself, which is pretty much through pop culture, pop art, and the art scene in general. I think you can learn a lot more if you were walking through an art gallery than through a library.
You use a lot of symbols in your work, like text and pop culture images, but also classic Western and Eastern symbols. What inspired that and what is the significance?
I grew up with a computer in my face. I played Cartoon Network games as a kid. Even then I used to be a kid talking to strangers and just learning things, whether good or bad. Everything I learned I had the backing to search it on the internet. I had so many questions that I was excited. That’s what is happening now, you Google everything. People are skipping the research part of things now because it goes too deep into the pool and you can either come out on the good side or the bad. I want to reiterate the things that I’ve read and I’ve learned a lot from. If you can convey a message not by what you’re reading and not by what I’m saying, but by what you’re looking at, what you’re feeling, what you’re experiencing, it’s more valid than the stuff which you may hold questionable every day of your life. I look at racism in a way where it is that thing where I know it’s there but the experience of my life has taught me how to approach it. When I was in elementary school, my best friend was a white girl named Megan, and my mom was so astounded that we were the best of friends. Megan was so into me because I was a cool kid, and I was like, whoa, I am not a cool kid. The main thing that astounded is she was white and then I started to notice all of these people I said were my friends or buddies were a different race. I didn’t see too many of them in my daily life or my community. I held that fascination because when you don’t know something and you want to explore. Every human has this innate nature to want to explore. You should hold onto the things you’re experiencing as the facts. I knew about racism, but I did not focus on that as a kid. I focused on the friends I had and teenagers now are doing the same and they aren’t paying attention to politics. To them us black and white people are fighting, is like mom and dad fighting. You love both of them and want them to stop fighting, but they can’t get past their own differences. They can’t come to agreements enough to put aside those differences. They want to see the things uniting us, not dividing us. What my artwork represents is the things I’ve seen and the culture I’ve experienced.
Is there another artist in your field who inspires you?
Before I discovered my favorite artist of all time, I’ve always adored Akira Toriyama. He developed Dragon Ball Z and a lot of other animations. He has a sense of not only artistic style but also story telling, which was about basically a young Japanese boy growing up. Most of the things he has experienced is lightly sprinkled throughout the series (Dragon Ball Z). When I got older and started researching art, Basquiat was hands down my favorite. When you’re looking at his work, you don’t understand it, but you can feel it. It takes a lot to develop something from nothing, but to also take what is in your mind and put in outward and translate it in a way that is not the everyday thing that you would see. I can appreciate the time he grew up in, I stuck with what he’s done and based my work off his. But in my most recent artwork, I’ve based it more off Akira Toriyama. Japanese art is kind of the pinnacle of what I consider art to be. Between them and China they have not changed since they populated the area. When you have a foundation like that and it evolves up until recent times, there’s a deep deep deep hand that culture has in society. I don’t want a black artist today to be like the black artists of the past.
Can you give me one sentence explanation of what is art?
Art is Life. Art is like you look down at your hands and there is some kind of art on your hands whether it be a ring or a tattoo. Even if you don’t want to see it, you’re going to see someone’s art. People don’t realize it’s a necessity. My mom has gotten me in tune with what you should have around you and how what you have around you initially becomes who you are. Art is one of those things where it’s necessary. If people understood that what is around us is who we are then we can really put art where it should be, which is at the center of your life. Art should be pleasant, peaceful, lovely, emotional, cringe worthy and some is hard to look at, but that’s what you should be seeing around you. I don’t think we need to tear down old art and replace it with new art. I think old art has its place.
Do you have a one piece or show or award that has been the highlight so far?
We went through that whole storm that we had here and I did that painting of the boat leaned up against the hotel. There were a few tiers of achievements that I acquired through that process. I never sold out of a gallery before and I had been in galleries since high school. I sold to a person who meant something to me, it was the person’s boat (in my painting). I wanted to get all of the details right and the conditions of the day so that when people looked at it they would know where it was. The fact that it went to that person means they can see that and know that and appreciate that enough to buy it from me. I’m pretty sure that was a bad time for them, but now they can feel what was going on at that time. I accomplished the most by becoming a part of this journey, I put my etch in history.
I know you’ve been in several exhibitions here at Bank of the Arts, but where else can people find your work?
I have a mural at Above the Roots over by Joseph A Bank. I did that a couple years ago with some other artists. I do have a mural in Havelock that I’m working on. Other than that, I have a lot of people that bought my work, so it is kind of floating around. Hopefully I do want to develop a space where I can showcase my art more often. I love showing my work here (BOA) but the capacity that I do art is one where by the time I’m doing something for this place or another where I have five other pieces I’m also working on. I’m looking for a dedicated space to showcase my work.
By Jonathan Burger, Craven Arts Council & Gallery, Inc.