In Illumilocity, Jon explores a territory where light becomes language. Each painting investigates the energy that inhabits color, the vibration that arises when matter surrenders to luminosity. Here, painting does not represent — it radiates.
Jon works from gesture and intuition, allowing movement to lead the way rather than form or control. Across the surface, layers of pigment behave like electric pulses, like urban reflections that breathe and dissolve. What emerges is not an image, but an atmosphere — an inner city built from color and rhythm.
His work dialogues with the legacies of material and gestural abstraction, yet moves beyond them into a contemporary space where light no longer illuminates from the outside, but emanates from within the painting itself. There is no nostalgia in his gesture, only continuity: a process of constant expansion, of growth understood as openness.
The colors — deep blues, electric violets, burning reds, radiant yellows — are not merely tones, but energies. Each embodies a distinct frequency: blue contemplates, violet reflects, red pulses, yellow vibrates. Together they compose a visual symphony that oscillates between calm and brilliance.
In this solo show at Red Dot Art Fair, Jon presents a body of work that affirms painting as a luminous experience. Illumilocity is a journey toward inner clarity — a celebration of movement, vibration, and presence. As Henri Matisse once said, “Creativity takes courage; one must have the courage to let go of what is known.”

Lucas Kokogian
Art Curator and Art Critic. GALERIA AZUR
Jon Gilchrist is a self-taught abstract artist born in 1975 in Oklahoma City, OK. Jon’s upbringing was enhanced by his involvement in various forms of artistic expression.
Later, Jon was exposed to, and inspired by, the following artists: as Joan Mitchell, Sam Gilliam, Mark Rothko, Sam Francis, Robert Motherwell, Norman Lewis, and Romare Bearden.
He expresses these influences through his use of texture, materials, arrangement, application, and elevating his own brand of social commentary to a more universal stature.











