About Artist

Jonathan Mark Arovas is a painter who today focuses primarily on abstraction.  He has studied portrait and naturalist style painting with Ismael Checo, a protege of Nelson Shanks—both in classes as well as privately.  At the same time he explored abstract composition on his own and also in classes in Rye, NY at the Rye Arts Center.  His abstract work evolved initially through his own experimentation with creating mosaic-style paintings using palette knives.  More recently he has continued his abstract pursuits at the Art Students League of New York, where for approximately 3 and 1/2 years he studied with Peter Bonner. 

 

He was recently selected for inclusion in the upcoming Greenwich Art Society Gallery's 107th Annual Juried Exhibition (Bendheim Gallery) which will run from May 20 to June 14, 2024

​

He has also exhibited work at the Exhibition Outreach show entitled “Fire and Ice” under the auspices of the Art Students League of New York and ChaShaMa, at One Brooklyn Bridge Park, October 6 through December 19, 2021 (please view link), as well as at the Rye Arts Center (June 27-September 9, 2022).

Exhibition Outreach: Fire and Ice at One Brooklyn Bridge Parktheartstudentsleague.org 

​

 

Jonathan Arovas is also a physician and a classical pianist.  He studied at Princeton University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Comparative Literature.

 

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

As an abstract painter I am fascinated by multilayered and distressed surfaces. The word “distressed” resonates in interesting ways, as such surfaces can serve as metaphors for lived experience fraught with trauma. Human beings tend to hide anguish beneath the surface of a facade. In my work I inquire how successive paint surfaces interact with and sometimes conceal deeper layers. In art as in life, there is always a subtext. 

In an earlier life, I practiced medicine. I worked as an internal medicine physician for some 20 years.  Working as a doctor one certainly learns a lot about the human condition, in particular about suffering but also about resilience. I am sure that this experience finds its way into my artwork in many ways, some of which I may not be conscious of.  But I know in my paintings I try to reach out to others and form some kind of connection. Life is fragile and as I used to tell my patients, everything is OK until it is not. Art, I feel, should convey something of this human frailty and impermanence.  It should also remind us how important it is to take the time to appreciate beauty in the world.