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It all started with aliens. When he was growing up in Lyons in the 1980s, Andrew Jones dreamed he encountered extraterrestrials, and he tried to re-create the beings in drawings. Fast-forward three decades, and Jones, 38, is still at it. He moved beyond pencil and paint during college in favor of the computer, but his subject matter never really changed. Today the artist—who goes by the pseudonym Android Jones—uses digital technology to craft fantastical universes with bulging tentacles, cyborg heads, and humanoid lovers gazing into each other’s eyes. His work has been displayed everywhere from Sydney’s Opera House to Grateful Dead shows, and this month it will be at the Artwork Network Gallery & Event Center on Santa Fe Drive.
—Photo by Steve Stanton
Before focusing on his own dreams, Jones has had to bring other people’s visions to life. After graduating from the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, he interned at Industrial Light & Magic (George Lucas’ visual-effects company) and then took a job at Nintendo’s office in Austin, Texas, as a conceptual artist on the Metroid and Metroid Prime video games.
“He’s taking his next-generation vision of art and bringing it to audiences that wouldn’t typically be looking for art.”
In 2011, Jones’ work was cast over Sydney Harbour during a live show on the opera house sails. Two years later, Jones moved home to Lyons; he now creates much of his work in the family barn. Jones designed displays for the Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary Fare Thee Well shows in June and July 2015. He draws huge crowds at Burning Man. “He’s taking his next-generation vision of art and bringing it to audiences that wouldn’t typically be looking for art,” says Stephen DeNorscia, executive director of Boulder’s Open Studios, which displayed Jones’ work at its Rembrandt Yard gallery last year.
Jones has become one of the leading artists in Denver’s digital art scene, which includes 12-year-old Boulder Digital Arts. There, Jones is a guru for burgeoning da Vincis de Photoshop. Last year he gave a demonstration to 80 artists (and his mom) at Boulder Digital Arts. Wearing a knit cap, Jones showed a video of portraits and floating geometric shapes cascading over performers. The effect was ethereal, almost like a dream.
