Hobo Codes

David Jones is a Queensland College of Art graduate with a double major in print media and painting. David has a wide variety of styles within his extensive bodies of work, displaying the diversity of rendering techniques and paint applications. A long-standing and beloved exhibitor with Recovered Futures, David's distinctive works consistently draw the viewer in for closer inspection.

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This work contains symbols that have been adapted from a visual code language used by American transient workers that rode the railway systems from town to town. Symbols were left in specific locations by hobos to identify various happenings in that area; a language that only other hobos could decipher. Adding some of these symbols to certain elements of the painting unlocks symbolic meanings that are significant to me, while also adding depth to the narrative.