Breaking the rules of perspective

It’s an early May evening at Bows & Arrows, and the artist crowd seem to outnumber the civilians on this opening night for the gallery’s Electric City exhibition.

The show highlights works from Placerville artist Michael Hoffee and Sacramento artist Jon Bafus, but it’s the latter who’s drawn the biggest number of fellow artists to get a better for feel for his work: paintings that depict floating towers and exhibit trippy recurring themes that include disembodied eyes, patterns composed of small, intensely hued squares, and M.C. Escher-ish constructions that could defy the rules of perspective.

It is, as some of the other artists and patrons observe, beers in hand, a bit on the “stoner” side.

Bafus doesn’t shrug off the description.

“I guess I’m a stony dude. I do like to get pretty psychedelic at times,” he says.

The artist, 28 and lean with an affable manner, demurs, however, when asked to go into any more detail.

That’s OK; the other artists in attendance are more than willing to share their opinions. Best friends and fellow Verge Center for the Arts artists Gioia Fonda and Ianna Frisby, for example, agree that Bafus’ paintings seem a bit “young.”

Still, they’re both intrigued by two works in particular—both painted on plywood and both depicting deconstructed floating towers.

“I like the towers,” says Fonda, “I want to see a castle.”

Frisby disagrees.

“A castle is just a castle; a tower can have many different meanings,” she argues.

Bafus’ work, Fonda adds, reminds her of Assume Vivid Astro Focus, an international arts collective known for its colorful, psychedelic installations.

For local artist and Sacramento City College art professor Chris Daubert, Bafus’ pieces evoke another area artist, Nathan Cordero, whose work is also mostly painted and carved into plywood.

Daubert says Bafus’ work shows “a good amount of creative energy.”

“The care and individuality that go into them make each one a viewing pleasure,” he says, “but their small scale and reliance on repetitive pattern make them seem more like sketchbook pieces—bits and parts waiting to be presented at full size.”

Bafus denies the influence, although he says he knows Cordero and appreciates his art.

Bows co-owner and gallery curator Trisha Rhomberg, who’s dated Bafus for approximately two years, says she recognized something vital in her boyfriend’s sketchbooks but had to urge him to start painting.

Now, Rhomberg says with a laugh, she has to urge him to stop—he compulsively redoes paintings until he risks overrendering, she says.

Her mentoring apparently paid off: Eight of Bafus’ pieces sold on opening night at Bows, a record for the gallery.

Eventually, however, Bafus says, he’d like to move his art out of his girlfriend’s apartment to “give it space.”

“I want to make bigger things; I’ve always been intimidated by the idea of making bigger art,” Bafus says. “[Before], I never understood the importance of an external space to work on stuff … [but now] it makes sense to have a studio where you can be messy.”

Bafus’ influences and inspirations include Escher and says his “wonky” pen-and-ink drawings are precisely rendered thanks to a drafting class he took in high school—“one of my favorite classes ever”—in Placerville, where he also played music and skated.

Bafus’ mother nurtured his interest in art—her own artistic roots run deep; she once attended art school and now collects pieces, including a painting by conceptual artist Stephen Kaltenbach, best known for his painting “Portrait of My Father,” which currently hangs at the Crocker Art Museum.

After high school, Bafus studied music at UC Davis, but right away, he says, he found the experience off-putting.

“I met the dean, he had this weird pompous you-wouldn’t-fit-in-here vibe,” Bafus says. “I got soured to it a little bit and decided to try something else.”

That something else turned out to be an unorthodox major called technocultural studies, for which Bafus took classes such on topics such as the history of sound in art, the atomic age, movement and design and technology.

After graduation, Bafus migrated between Davis and Sacramento, playing in various bands including a seven-year stint in Sholi, More recently, he toured with the band Appetite, and also drums in a three-piece band, Gentlemen Surfer.

Music, he says, is crucial in his life.

“I’ve always been real shy,” he says. “Drumming’s been a great outlet. I’ve thought of it as a better voice for me than talking.”

A few nights after the Bows exhibition opening, Bafus is set to play a set with Gentlemen Surfer at a house show in Davis.

The crowd is young and 50 percent bearded; a dog weaves in and out of the audience’s legs. Gentlemen Surfer takes the stage at 11:15 p.m.—at a show was supposed to be over by 10. Bafus politely thanks everyone for staying, puts on a headset mic and stretches like an athlete. As the band launches into its first song, Bafus explodes into a whirlwind of beats, more octopus than man. The proggy, jazzy music lurches from place to place, pulled by Bafus’ syncopated beats.

As a guy naps on the couch in the back, and the clock ticks toward midnight, Bafus, dripping with sweat, introduces the band’s next number—and in a sense, gets to the heart of his underlying artistic ethos:

“This is our last song,” he says. “It’s called ‘Keep.’ As in, ‘Keep. Doing. Things.’”