Tyrrel Jonns and Lena Davis Build Photographic Constructs Beyond Literal Representation

Key facts

• Tyrrel Jonns and Lena Davis collaborate on photographic art constructs combining traditional image making with digital experimentation.
• Jonns began painting on paper in childhood before moving to canvas, and took up photography later through colour 35 millimetre film, then monochromatic analogue and digital processes.
• Classic American noir cinema is cited as a defining influence on Jonns's lighting, shadow, and cinematic atmosphere.
• Named influences include filmmakers Alejandro Jodorowsky, Orson Welles, and Stanley Kubrick; artists Salvador Dalí, Francis Bacon, and Max Ernst; and writers William Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, and Charles Bukowski.
• One collaborative project originated from a daydream about combining photographs taken years earlier by Jonns and Davis into new visual structures.
• The current series consists of ten colour images employing a chiaroscuro-inspired static mise en scène.
• The artists treat spatial depth, surface texture, negative space, and open and closed compositional structures as active components of the process.
• Their practice positions digital tools as instruments serving broader artistic intentions rather than as the primary subject.