Jayson Finney is Experiencing His Life in Color

Even though art is meant to be an undefined idea, a virtually lawless genre of works created to express and develop the human experience, there is still a set idea of what art is supposed to be. 

When people visualize art, they think of the Mona Lisa, works by Michelangelo, and other oil or acrylic canvas paintings created by artists of the renaissance. People never consider the geniuses of the present, the artistic masterminds who use their modern environment and the materials of today to create their own interpretation of art and color. Jayson Finney’s art is a perfect embodiment of this idea, with art pieces that express his emotions through mediums that the average consumer often overlooks. 

 “I began doing art.. around five years [ago], a little over that,” said Finney, when asked about the beginning of his artistic career. “I started with a maybe a 10 pack of Crayola; just a regular red, yellow, orange [case]. From there, I just continued to grow. I stuck with it, and I’ve come up with something that I really have been drawn to. Since then, I have branched out and been able to communicate through colors. I’ve been able to focus my energy. I didn’t realize how much I loved it, too, you know?” 

Jayson Finney has certainly been able to branch out since he initially began creating art with ink and markers. From that 10 pack of Crayolas, he’s been able to create a wide variety of abstract artistic works, all of which are extremely complex because of his intense understanding of color theory. With the use of sharp lines, shapes, and bright colors, the world through Jayson Finney’s eyes truly comes to life.

“It was very therapeutic… I originally came from poetry in writing,” said Finney. “I would write short stories, you know, I hosted a few poetry spots in DC and around town at the time, but I have the artist spirit and energy. So this time, I was just focused more on color, so I started with markers.” 

 Finney’s extraordinary relationship with color developed into something even more amazing. His creative background in writing and poetry was a big influence on his life, and he speaks a lot to the artistic geniuses of his time. He mentioned his journey to realizing he could use his words artistically, his influences from artists like Jill Scott, Maya Angelou, and his father, who was a musician.  From there, he had a transition from auditory to visual artistry, when he used to draw on the floor with his daughter.

“My daughter, she was maybe 16 months or something like that, but I started with the crayons, and she would, of course, you know, run over them and completely mess it up, or just destroy it, rip it, or take the crayons,” said Finney. “Eventually I got a 10 pack of markers, just the Crayola, the regular pink, red, orange, blue. I then began to just color on a notebook paper with the lines, and I kept it.“ 

In more recent years, Finney has made the transition from notebook paper to canvas, and created works that —at first glance— seem like they could have only been created with a paint medium such as acrylic or oil. He is now working on moving from solely abstract designs to shapes and even people, one of his models being the well-known contortionist, IAmStevana. 

He originally reached out to the contortionist for the purpose of learning how to draw shapes and people.

He had the intention of expanding his artistic skill past the abstract world. From there, she gave him five different poses for him to model his work after, which Finney used to create his first piece of work based on the body of a real person. 

His piece, called “Mother of the Sun,” still showcases a great amount of Jayson Finney’s style, with the vibrant colors surrounding the body of Stevana, and of course, the contrast between these colors and the black he used for Stevana’s body. As a piece created entirely by ink, it truly shows why the diversity of art and art mediums can lead to the most beautiful creations.

“You can create anything,” said Finney when asked what advice he had for blossoming artists. An artist will only reach their full potential when they learn to ignore the limitations the world puts out to stop them.

View Jayson Finney’s Personal Works Here!