Jono Ganz
Jono is an illustrator and designer with an interest in folklore and symbology. Working in a range of disciplines from printmaking to video, he is particularly interested in making work that brings together a sense of unease and melancholia with playfulness and humanity.
This work is concerned with memory and symbols and takes inspiration from twentieth century matchbox illustrations. These illustrations would very rarely depict the matches themselves, instead featuring images of industry, public health notices and, frequently, illustrations of the natural world. Emblazoned with vibrant colours and containing a source of light and warmth, these objects become talismans, everyday objects imbued with a deeper power, and in the case of those depicting nature, a tiny memento of the wilderness in our rapidly industrialising world.
This series is diaristic, featuring nine real locations visited by the artist. Each place straddles the divide between urban and rural - mountains that loom over cities in Norway, cliff paths between coastal towns, urban meadows - and are loaded with personal memory. Though these images have been produced by mechanical processes, the remembered nature is still present in the contents of the boxes: the wood of the match and the wildness of its flame.
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