My first visual expression was car design. I was very young, taking classes at a design school, over at a summer program, and I was drawing a car in a different direction — I guess there’s supposed to be one orientation that you draw cars, from the profile. And the instructor said, “You can’t draw it that way.” I think that limitation is what inspired me to get into art with a capital A, because the desire to want to know why things are a certain kind of way is what fueled my curiosity.
Jasper Marsalis, “Untitled,” 2023. Marsalis, who is also a musician, tries to “translate” the experience of performing “into a painting or drawing.” Something that I’ve been kind of obsessed with when I’m performing is when there’s density or fog in the air — you can see the lines that lights make onstage. In my work, some people see those lines as physical objects. I’ve had people be like, “Oh, is that a plane or knife or something?” Then I’ll say, “What if the light is now just a nail?” So I drew this nail that’s face-up, and then this audience, which is in the shadow of the nail, wraps around it.
Drawing is ultimate trust. One of my first lessons in art was how to make a line. Especially using ink, what you see is what happened — it’s a very one-to-one relationship, with your body even. I think drawings are like studies. People will do still-life studies — I see these drawings as still lifes, but maybe there are no objects in front of me. I’m thinking about an experience.Jasper Marsalis lives and works in L.A. He graduated with a BFA from the Cooper Union, New York, in 2017.
I don't see how you can draw that conclusion