Jonathan Lasker

b.1948, born in Jersey City, New Jersey; lives in New York, New York


Painter Jonathan Lasker aims for interpretive rather than literal viewing, explaining that suggestion is the only way one sees images in a painting, even if the painting is supposedly “realistic.” The imagery in his Tamarind lithographs, which he calls “Ball Figures,” round knots of scrawly black lines form ball shapes which are abutted next to one another to make forms which have human, animal, or plant associations. Thicker lines form circles of alternating colors that, gathered in different portions of the paper, create patterned areas that hint at horizon lines, background, or foreground.

Lasker studied at the School of Visual Arts, New York (1975-77) and California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (1977). He has had retrospectives at Kunsthalle Bielefield; Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam); Kunstmuseum (St. Gallen); The Power Plant (Toronto); the Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama); the Reina Sofia (Madrid); and Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Düsseldorf). Among public collections, his work is represented in Mudam, The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg; the Hirshhorn (Washington, D.C.); Los Angeles County Museum; Moderna Museet (Stockholm); Museum Ludwig (Cologne); and the Whitney Museum of American Art (NY).

https://jonathanlasker.net/