Jonathan Aller teaches at MCAD. This work is from a class demonstration of the direct painting technique. Acrylic on canvas panel. Photos: Chris Emeott
Edina artist is a master at bringing movement to the canvas.
Jonathan Aller has always been interested in movement. Since his childhood in Miami, Aller has been drawing and painting his environment, capturing motion and turning it into art. Running around outside as a kid, he would carry a sketchbook and practice his animation skills. In Florence, Italy, he studied classical painting techniques and made figures come to life.
“To me it feels like breathing. It just doesn’t feel right if I’m not drawing or painting,” Aller says. “I’ve always been into the arts since I was a kid. I was always drawing space shuttles, cartoon characters and so on. My passion has grown since then,” he says.
Aller moved to Minnesota in 2007 and earned his master’s degree in fine arts from Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) in 2018. He has been teaching there alongside his art practice. His journey to Minnesota feels epic, and his artworks reveal his immense talent.
“In Miami, we were always outside. I was always doodling, playing sports and sketching. I remember getting into animation, and I was a fan of traditional paper animation,” Aller says. “It became a fascination. I just really enjoyed it. I remember having all these books on how to animate. I just liked the idea of these things coming alive on this 2D paper, infusing life into it. I would obsess over these books, read every little detail.”
In middle school, he visited MGM Studios. “I got to go backstage and met a couple of the animators. I knew that’s what I wanted to do, and I met with an animator who said to get a sketchbook and sketch everything you see. I did that, and that’s when the obsession just grew even more,” Aller says. “I love the idea of observing and just drawing. It became a kind of documentation of things I saw, trying to capture the essence of what was in front of me and translate it into my own world in my sketchbook.”
These untitled portraits are made with form in mind so “the feeling of life is felt throughout the drawing,” Aller says. Ballpoint pen on Strathmore paper. Artwork: Jonathan Aller
By his freshman year of college, the movie Toy Story was released. “Computer animation was taking hold. The industry changed, and animation was all computerized. I had to make a choice whether I was going to do that or something else,” he says. “I just couldn’t sit in front of a computer. The tactile, traditional method of drawing or painting was what I loved.”
Aller received his undergraduate degree at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. When he realized that a career in digital animation was not for him, a new path emerged. “I was in history class and saw this beautiful Caravaggio painting, The Calling of St. Matthew,” he says. “It just stopped me in my tracks. I thought, ‘What is this? Someone can actually paint this?!’ That fascination that I had with animation just bled into the fine art world. The way these artists were bringing these paintings to life is what I loved about traditional animation.”
Jonathan Aller is painting a freehand reproduction of Peter Paul Rubens’ The Death of Henry IV and the Proclamation of the Regency. “I made this piece to demonstrate the grisaille process, which was popular among Flemish painters of that era,” he says. Aller does not trace, project or transfer the original image. Every detail is drawn and then painted entirely by hand. Photo: Chris Emeott
After finishing school in Sarasota, Aller wanted to keep learning. “I didn’t feel like I had the proper tools that I needed to speak the language I wanted to speak,” he says. He went to Florence to study the classical techniques he had fallen in love with. At the Angel Academy of Art, he began to see everything in a different way. “I wanted to learn that secret,” he says. Studying the masters helped him develop both technical skill and personal artistic style. “Going there transformed me as a person artistically, intellectually, everything,” he says.
3 Graces. Inspired by the sculpture of the same name by Bertel Thorvaldsen. Oil, acrylic, latex paint and marker on canvas. Artworks: Jonathan Aller
After three years in Florence, Aller moved to Minnesota (the home state of his wife, Angelina Aller) and his art practice continued to grow. While working toward his master’s degree, he honed in on a central characteristic of his art throughout his life: gesture. “A gesture is a quick drawing of what could be a figure, a still life, a landscape, an object. A quick notation of something in front of you,” Aller says. “A gesture can take five to 10 seconds or two minutes. If it’s five minutes, it’s too long. A gesture is done in a quick manner, you’re just getting the essence of what’s in front of you. You’re just capturing with your subconscious, reacting in a very quick way without getting too technical.”
While it’s not too technical, it is a process. “I started playing with interviewing and having sitters, talking to them and having multi-hour conversations with them. I’d paint them afterwards while going back to the recordings I had, reacting to the conversations. I’d start playing with what they’d tell me, with the colors that I’d see with those conversations or with those different approaches,” he says. “The master’s program was vital for getting me out of the classical mold.”
Broken Color is “a play on chaos and control of how the two coexist in one space,” Jonathan Aller says. Oil and Acrylic on Canvas Panel, 11”x14”.
He also came to recognize just how pivotal his animation skills were to both his artistic journey and creative identity. “I found that it was the thread that brought everything together: the gesture, the line, the movement of things. The gesture to me is everything,” Aller says. “To me, that’s the identity of the art itself before it’s polished and cleaned up. The gesture is the individual voice of the artist. It’s very raw. That initial mark is what tells you who the artist is.”
Now, Aller teaches at MCAD and is able to interact with young artists who share his passion for capturing life on the page. Aller draws on experiences from favorite teachers when he’s in the classroom with students. “I remember being in college, and my figure drawing teacher would draw with us. He was such a passionate teacher. You could tell that’s what he was born to do. It didn’t feel hierarchical; you didn’t feel intimidated. He would draw with us and communicate, but you never felt like you were trying to get an A. You just wanted to learn the vital information from him,” Aller says. “The passion he had, how we were just kind of mesmerized by him. I remember thinking, ‘I want to do a version of this.’ I didn’t know how, but I loved it and it stayed with me.”
Peppers. This original painting combines Renaissance elements with a contemporary still life composition. Oil on masonite panel.
Over the years, Aller honed his teaching skills and noticed trends among young artists in the classroom. “I’ve noticed that the new generation has a lot of access to information. So, the skill level is on a different level than when I was in college. They’re a lot more advanced in a way because of YouTube and Patreon, social media … They get that instruction outside of school, so when they get to the college level, we get to refine and fine tune,” he says.
Abuelita is a drawing of the artist’s late grandmother.
Aller says the next generation of artists also prefer digital art. “That’s a huge difference from when I was young. A lot of them come in only drawing on iPads, so in my class, they’re required to draw in a physical sketchbook. It’s very easy to erase on an iPad, and they can’t do that. So that’s an adjustment for them. They have to depend on doing it in the traditional way, but I see them making that change, and they enjoy seeing the positives of working in a traditional way,” he says.
Grounded in the physical and imperfect beauty of sketching and having a deep respect for classical techniques, Aller is just the person to show a new generation what’s worth holding on to.
Jonathan Aller Paintings
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Instagram: @jonathanallerart
