Jonas Wood
12 Jul - 10 Aug 2007
JONAS WOOD
June 28, 2007—For his first solo exhibition in New York, the young Los Angeles-based artist Jonas Wood has put together a group of paintings and watercolor drawings that complement each other thematically and formally. The subjects are nearly classical, flower still-lifes, interiors, portraits, figures, with a slight twist (both thematically and compositionally) e.g. by including images of star athletes.
The artist works from life, from photo collages, and sometimes, as in the case of the basketball players, from media sources. Preparatory sketches and collages build the basis for the drawings’ and paintings’ compositions and spatial lay-outs. At this point in the process, Wood invents the perspectival tilt and distorted viewpoint that so clearly define his works.
The blocky flatness of the paintings, their tilted perspective, the compositional autonomy of color, line and shape point at Wood’s interest in concepts of time and the legibility of nature. What these works bring to mind historically, such as the intense otherness of early American itinerant portrait paintings, or the flat intricacies of Stuart Davis’ American-Cubist paintings, or the spatial and colorist play of David Hockney, and even the psychological acumen and emotional intensity of Alice Neel, they supercede in a present-day-ness and contemporary thrill and pleasure.
Jonas Wood was born in Boston in 1977. He received his MFA from the University of Washington in 2002. For the last four years, he has been showing actively in California galleries. His work is currently on view in a group show at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, and was just recently exhibited in a two-person show at Cereal Art in Philadelphia. Wood lives and works in Los Angeles.
June 28, 2007—For his first solo exhibition in New York, the young Los Angeles-based artist Jonas Wood has put together a group of paintings and watercolor drawings that complement each other thematically and formally. The subjects are nearly classical, flower still-lifes, interiors, portraits, figures, with a slight twist (both thematically and compositionally) e.g. by including images of star athletes.
The artist works from life, from photo collages, and sometimes, as in the case of the basketball players, from media sources. Preparatory sketches and collages build the basis for the drawings’ and paintings’ compositions and spatial lay-outs. At this point in the process, Wood invents the perspectival tilt and distorted viewpoint that so clearly define his works.
The blocky flatness of the paintings, their tilted perspective, the compositional autonomy of color, line and shape point at Wood’s interest in concepts of time and the legibility of nature. What these works bring to mind historically, such as the intense otherness of early American itinerant portrait paintings, or the flat intricacies of Stuart Davis’ American-Cubist paintings, or the spatial and colorist play of David Hockney, and even the psychological acumen and emotional intensity of Alice Neel, they supercede in a present-day-ness and contemporary thrill and pleasure.
Jonas Wood was born in Boston in 1977. He received his MFA from the University of Washington in 2002. For the last four years, he has been showing actively in California galleries. His work is currently on view in a group show at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, and was just recently exhibited in a two-person show at Cereal Art in Philadelphia. Wood lives and works in Los Angeles.