Meet Jonathan Evans

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jonathan Evans a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jonathan, thank you so much for making time for us today. We can’t wait to dive into your story and the lessons you’ve learned along the way, but maybe we can start with something foundational to your success. How have you gone about developing your ability to communicate effectively?

After a lifetime in art, after doing a thousand art shiws, painting five thousnad paintings and writing unnumerable articles and a book about batik , I have honed my communication skills.
I also run my own art gallery and work and sell my art there. I have had 15 years of practice in talking to and dealing with the Public. At this point, I can deal and talk to anybody. I cannot sell my art, but I can sell myself. My passion for what I do communicates to most people. Practice makes almost perfect!

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I have been a batik artist all my adult life. I left school and university not knowing what I wanted to do at all. I taught school in Oxford for a few years and left the UK fto live in Spain when I was 25. I had to find a way to support myself in a hurry. I had come across Batik as a school teacher, an interesting art process to paint images on cloth using wax and dyes. Something in my thought process let me understand the medium straightaway. Perhaps it waas my slightly OCD personality- but I immediately connected with this ancient art form. You applied dyes onto cloth and used hot wax on the cloth to seperate and preserve the colours you wanted to keep. By alternating dyes and wax as a resist, it was possible to build up images or patterns on any organic cloth.
I was living in Barcelona and made a batik shirt. It sold instantly which was a strong reason to make more and more and then started to make pictures and paintings to hang on the wall. More than 50 years later, I am still doing that. I have painted literally thousands of batik paintings. I have lived and shown my art all over the world. After 10 years in Ibiza and Spain mainland, I moved to New York where I had 5 solo shows in 5 years. . I have lived and shown all over the USA and currently own and operate the only batik gallery in America. I live and woirk with my American wife Beth Evans, herself a leading batik artist . I am currently Chairman of the Batik Guild, an international society of Batik artists.
Since 1978 when I forst came to the USA, I have shown my art all over Europe and the USA, have worked in Bali for an English Rave clothes company for a year, designing Batik fabrics for them and have lived and owned a house in the HImalayas of N. India. I continue to be busier and more prlofic as an arrtist than ever before. I showed my work in Florida, the UK and in Colorado last year where my wife and I put on the very foirst all-American Batik exhibition- BatikUSA. I amn the main instigater of the Year of Batik 2024-25, an ambitious attempt to legitimise and promote the art fo Batik all over the world with shows and workshops in many countries.
www.batikinternational.com is the forst major website set up to collect, publicise and collate all things Batik.
Our gallery website is www.shalawalla.com
The Batik Guild website is www.batikguild.org.uk
At the end of last year, a publisher in Seattle put out my wife’s and my collected art in “A Book of batik” available on our www.shalawalla.com website.
I have done Batik for almost 60 years and turned 81 recently. I have a memoir written called “Confessions of an Itinerant Batik Artist” as well as several novels. Batik has given me a direction, a purpose and a serious mission in life. It saaves my life every day! It has taken me all over the world and given me a fabulous life of freedom and adventure.
I have also taught Batik all over the world and do volunteer work in Mexico, Haiti and India, teacching the process to impoverished women , coming up with products for them to sell and setting up small cottage industries to enable them to make money and achieve some autonomy.
I will be happy to tell you more but in a long life of art in which I have painted literally thousands of paintings, I have many stories and many have had many adventures. I should be happy to tell you more if you like! I have the new book to show you, many articles on Batik and a huge catalogue of art..

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back, I realise that I have kept my life fresh and exciting by moving around a lot ., by living in many different countries and having mant different experiences. Perhpas i have re-invented myself and life every decade or so. It has kept my subject matter and inspirations in art continually new and changing. I learmed long ago that as soon as I get too good at some subject in my work, it is time to stop and try another direction. Thus I have painted landscapes all over the world, many maany portraits of people all over the world and especially India . I am currently working on a series of classic and antique carss that Interest me a lot as well as a series of Lilies and Lily ponds. I long ago realsied thta being a successful artist- ie living off my art work- is perhaps 5 % inspiration and 95% hard work, discipline and dtermination, qualities that kuckily I have. I have been prepared to take a lot of chamces and to adapt when I needed to- but above all, to keep working even when I am tired and not feeling very insprired. I waas lucky to get a loive of art from my artist mother and the discipline I needed to carry on and carry things through when things get tough from my academic faather….

If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?

I could have happily answered most of those questions but have chosen this particular one . I am suffering from Macular degeneration – a condition which is causing me to lose the central point of vision in my eyes. there is no cure, my mother suffered from it also, and I have had to learn to adapt in a hurry in order to keep working in my Batik medium.
I am actually partially blind and have had to stop driving altogether but am dealing with it very calmly and stoically. My work has changed as a result. I cannot see to do the very detailed work thta I have done all my life and am not concentrating on colour, new colour combinations and more. I have fully learned about colour theory and the correct use of dyes. My work is bigger and bolder as a result and hopefully no less striking. I still get the same absolute pleasure from my work and have learned to roll with what Life can dish up for one. I shall wrok till I drop I believe and aactually ahve never been busier or more prolific. Being able to adapt has heelped me throughout my life…..

Contact Info:

• Website: www.shalawalla.com www.batikinternational.com www.batikguild. org.uk
• Instagram: Jonathan S. Evans
• Facebook: Jonathan S. Evans
• Youtube: Shalawalla Gallery ( we have excellent videos posted)
• Other: Blue Sky Jonathan S. Evans
  Blue Ear Books www.blueerabooks.com

Image Credits

I am happy to do this- but there are a lot of pictures of my work. Perhaps you would tell me which ones you might use? They are all titled already I believe. Happy to accomodate you in whaatever you might need!