In the Studio with Jack Haynes

Jack Haynes draws pictures. After graduating from high school in 1999, he spent two years at Illinois State University studying illustration before moving to Chicago to pursue his passion, hoping that a career would soon follow. As a freelance designer, he has designed stationery, logos, invitations, books, and other printed matter for several companies. He loves comics and hopes to author and illustrate his own one day. On Friday afternoon, I had the opportunity to sit down with Jack Haynes, pick his brain and flip through his sketchbook. 

Your work spans a plethora of different media, what kind of artist would you classify yourself as?

It's difficult to truly feel like an artist of any medium at 30 with so much to still learn and do. I have put the most study into human figure illustration and painting.

How do you describe your style?

A problem in search of a solution.

Your drawings are both black and white and color. I particularly love your use of the pen and black line. Can you speak on this a little?

I have always felt my best work has been in pencil. I enjoy the look of rough pencil and pen sketches. I was lucky enough to have a father who was gifted in pen illustration and his techniques were my foundation.

You haven't had much formal art education training, where did you learn to draw like this?

As I said, my father was a gifted illustrator but he chose to raise a family instead of pursue an art career so only I and my family were able to benefit from his extreme talent. He and I would draw together and I would look at the pictures in the art books he had around the house occasionally until I learned being able to draw helped people like you at school, at which point I began actually reading the books. Eventually I started to develop an understanding.

I've had the special chance to see some of the posters you designed for theatrical productions, how did these projects come about?

At the end of 2006 I answered an ad on Craigslist titled '3 Artistic Creatives Seeking 4th Roommate' and very luckily met the owners of a small local theater ensemble that unfortunately no longer exists. Everything clicked and they discovered I had leanings towards art and design and very graciously allowed me to come up with some poster ideas for that season of shows. I was somehow able to impress them with my work and earned the privilege of designing some more posters and other things for them. (And yes they did accept me as their 4th roommate.)

Creating posters takes some graphic design skill, would you ever want a career in graphic design?

I have already tried, though it didn't turn out too well. I was a designer for a small independent print shop for a year and a half and had a bad split from the company, which I will admit I did not handle very professionally. Live and learn. Design is fascinating to me and a must to understand to be a valuable creative. I would much rather draw all day though.

Can you describe the purpose of your artwork?

Selfishly, it is therapeutic for me. The ultimate purpose is to help maintain my sanity and also to challenge myself. I take the idea of confrontation in art seriously. You shouldn't ever be completely comfortable in a gallery space. I purposefully make my art ugly, oppressive, sexual and disgusting. Any grace is found in the technique, but the expression is usually a pure deluge of the assets of my or our collective humanity that I wish I could expunge. I want to confront the viewer with ideas that should not be ignored, things that I think are beautiful.

Talk to me a little bit about the drawing of the man being crushed by the book. This is one of my favorite works.

This is a digital piece done in Adobe Photoshop that I excitedly did one day after I had been staring out my window for a while thinking about out of body experiences. A man passed by on the sidewalk under my window and we locked eyes for a split second before we both instantly looked away from each other. I wondered, 'Why do I do that? Why is it uncomfortable to lock eyes with a stranger?' and it occurred to me that this was an out of body experience. We are constantly putting ourselves in other people’s perspectives, imagining what they think or feel or how it would feel to be in their station in life. Locking eyes with that stranger put me in his perspective and for that brief moment had me imagining what he might see or be thinking, (which probably was 'Why is the creeper staring at me?'). I immediately wanted to make a drawing that evoked this sense in a different way, where when you imagine being in this person's perspective, you are uncomfortable, as an exercise in translating the ways we travel outside of our body every day without realizing it.

Who are some artists that inspire you and inform your work?

There are a litany and I hate name dropping.

Do you take photographs?

Only for tourists, unless you wanna loan me your digital SLR...?