DON JONES: AN ARTIST FOR ALL SEASONS
Paintings by Don Jones will show at The First Unitarian Universalist Church, 93 West Weisheimer, through March 2006. There are thirty large paintings in this exhibit, and they are a pleasure to behold. Art connoisseurs and uninitiated viewers alike should enjoy this array which provides a compleat journey through painting.
AN OVERVIEW
The artist knows how to draw and paint and has been doing that for quite some time. Yet, his Weisheimer show is not actually a retrospective but consists of paintings done over the past eight to ten years.
Jones is a representational painter, knows the human body, knows portraiture, and is a more than accomplished technician. His brushwork is not very textural, or thick, yet his colors dance from a warm palette that emphasizes puples, magentas, blues, green, and dull golds. His flesh tones are pleasing and rosy except when they're gorgeously copper.
The artist loves life and the earth, and he is the master of eco colors --- especially bright blues --- that surround and enhance his "solo" humans, the focal points in most of his paintings.
Jones tends toward the impressionistic, yet ventures into an exciting mix of abstractions and line drawings from time to time. He cannot be defined, or confined, by any "school." When he was quite young his painting and drawing gave him a "voice," and now he creates art because it is there, inside him and around him. --- How shall we tell the archer from the bow?
THE MUSICIANS
The solitary person, not necessarily a lonely one, dominates Jones' exhibit. The artist is, after all, an art therapist of long standing. His single figures, presented alone amid familiar and usually austere backgrounds, emit a warmth that includes individuality, self expression.
LONELY FIDDLER practices, seated in a kitchen chair, in an almost empty room where everything is gray and two dim parakeets sing in a tarnished cage.
JIM PLAYS THE BLUES could be a pastel! Colors are bold and flat. Jim is a medley of golds and browns. His brown-shod feet hold the chalk blue music book steady on the floor. The guitar and the rag rug are vivid chalk blue and almost leap into the air!
MORGAN WITH GUITAR is 24 x 36 inches, the average size of most of the paintings, and is more detailed, more " filled out" than the other "musician" paintings. The blonde boy with longish hair is around twelve. He is Jones' son, Morgan. He's seated on the piano bench, his back against the keyboard. His white shirt "plays off", balances, the white music pages and the narrow strip of piano keys in the shadowy room where he's practicing. Morgan's face and figure present a specific young man, his earnestness caught forever in a special moment. The blended, inobtrusive, background --- dull gold, purple, rosy-magenta strokes, sunlight against shadow --- is testimony to Jones' painterly skill.
SELF PORTRAITS
"Looking into the mirror, painting a self portrait, is one way of saying 'What's goin' on Don?'"--- Don Jones.
As an art therapist with many years experience at the noted Menninger Clinic, and later at Harding Hospital, Don Jones paints himself in order to learn about "le Moi," the Me. There are nine fascinating self portraits in the show. As a technician Jones knows the compositional gambit of using a bright splat, this time a red brush tip, in order to "set up" a painting. He does this in the marvelous THE ARTIST POSING AS ARTIST in which he's shown at work in a studio pleasantly cluttred with objects and symbols.
I REFLECT ON WATER is a Jones par excellence. In this striking painting the artist has painted himself as two triangles within circles --- well, within two half circles! His arms bend at the elbows, and his hands are clasped. Thus, he's triangular! His hair is as white as Merlin's, or any wizard's, while he peers into his own reflection which seems to reside in a pool of the night sky, or the universe. He is encircled by strips (medicine hoops?) of eco blues and greens, of white and black, and a few stars glitter in the surrounding darkness. --- From across the room this portait reminds me of a peace sign. --- "Don't look for any hidden narrative, rather respond with your own ideas," Jones has printed on a placard elsewhere in the exhibit.
In one portrait Jones has depicted himself, his wife Karen who is an art therapist, and his son Morgan, a strong infant. The triad is, perhaps, Jones' U.U. portrait of a classical holy family --- loving parents and a child. Karen's lovely straight-planed face glows; she has short hair; she wears a dull lime green dress against which she cradles Morgan, a fine strong baby. Don, the tall Joseph figure, gazes over Karen's shoulder, his face in shadows.
THE SHIMMER
Jone's landscapes, and yes, many of his other paintings, emit a a rare sheen. Whether to label certain paintings as "acrylic" or "oil" proved a conundrum. --- Something else seemed to be going on! When queried the artist explained that he works in "mixed media," that he uses, and combines, layers of polyurethane varnishes and acrylics for his paintings. He says he doesn't know "anyone else who does it just like this, although I've tried to teach other painters to do it."
In the center of MY NEIGHBORS YARD IN SPRING (24 x 36 inches) one large tree empowers, "lights up," the painting from the center, emits a glory of white blossoms that have dropped in a circle under it. In the background, the neighbor's low slung house and the meld of aquas above it, have been appropriately, sketchily, painted. In the right corner a tall audacious forsythia explodes with unabashed yellow. In the distance small navy blue (!) bushes form a row against the house. Here's a contra dance! --- Each color sashays, if gently, with the other. Yet, this painting explodes with spring. --- The Shimmer has done its thing.
AFTER THE RAIN. If you love Jones' "Spring" painting, his gorgeous, yet familiar condo-scape, After the Rain, will blow you away. In my opinion you won't find a better contemporary landscape anywhere. And you'll have to look far and wide to find a similar natural light, or sheen, that glitters as it does in Don Jones' After the Rain.
BALLERINAS AND GROTESQUES
Jones' simple pastel-like renderings of costumed ballerinas are naturally posed and appealing. His DRAGON FLY brings the green mist of Avalon to an arabesque penchee. His version is as charming as Anna Pavlova's in vintage posters for "Dragonfly." As is typical of Jones work, the dancers nearly "fill up" their large frames.
The artist's forays into abstract art are vivid and successful. EXPRESSIVE DANCER, NO EXIT, and INSPIRATION WON'T STAY ON THE CANVAS, are but three of his quality abstracts which include overlays and bold lines.
The artist shines at his own brand of social commentary which means that he expects viewers to, calmly, fill in their own dots. THE LAST FLOWER is a strong abstract expessionist work, a rush of bold strokes, that speaks to the urgency of ecological issues. Here the ultra urbanized have thronged to see a single dandelion, "the last flower."
Although we may read our own meaning into the grotesque and murky expressionist painting which presents scowling elders sitting against a wall, SMILE AT SOMEONE TODAY, indeed, speaks of Jones' concern for the warehousing of the elderly, for their being forced to become "other."
The Gallery is in the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 93 W. Weisheimer. Myra Hine is the curator. Jones' paintings are also displayed in the halls and in the vast and pleasing Worship Center. If the church is open, the art show is available. Admission, like your many-splendored thoughts and reactions to the art, is open and free. Call 267-4946 for hours.
AN OVERVIEW
The artist knows how to draw and paint and has been doing that for quite some time. Yet, his Weisheimer show is not actually a retrospective but consists of paintings done over the past eight to ten years.
Jones is a representational painter, knows the human body, knows portraiture, and is a more than accomplished technician. His brushwork is not very textural, or thick, yet his colors dance from a warm palette that emphasizes puples, magentas, blues, green, and dull golds. His flesh tones are pleasing and rosy except when they're gorgeously copper.
The artist loves life and the earth, and he is the master of eco colors --- especially bright blues --- that surround and enhance his "solo" humans, the focal points in most of his paintings.
Jones tends toward the impressionistic, yet ventures into an exciting mix of abstractions and line drawings from time to time. He cannot be defined, or confined, by any "school." When he was quite young his painting and drawing gave him a "voice," and now he creates art because it is there, inside him and around him. --- How shall we tell the archer from the bow?
THE MUSICIANS
The solitary person, not necessarily a lonely one, dominates Jones' exhibit. The artist is, after all, an art therapist of long standing. His single figures, presented alone amid familiar and usually austere backgrounds, emit a warmth that includes individuality, self expression.
LONELY FIDDLER practices, seated in a kitchen chair, in an almost empty room where everything is gray and two dim parakeets sing in a tarnished cage.
JIM PLAYS THE BLUES could be a pastel! Colors are bold and flat. Jim is a medley of golds and browns. His brown-shod feet hold the chalk blue music book steady on the floor. The guitar and the rag rug are vivid chalk blue and almost leap into the air!
MORGAN WITH GUITAR is 24 x 36 inches, the average size of most of the paintings, and is more detailed, more " filled out" than the other "musician" paintings. The blonde boy with longish hair is around twelve. He is Jones' son, Morgan. He's seated on the piano bench, his back against the keyboard. His white shirt "plays off", balances, the white music pages and the narrow strip of piano keys in the shadowy room where he's practicing. Morgan's face and figure present a specific young man, his earnestness caught forever in a special moment. The blended, inobtrusive, background --- dull gold, purple, rosy-magenta strokes, sunlight against shadow --- is testimony to Jones' painterly skill.
SELF PORTRAITS
"Looking into the mirror, painting a self portrait, is one way of saying 'What's goin' on Don?'"--- Don Jones.
As an art therapist with many years experience at the noted Menninger Clinic, and later at Harding Hospital, Don Jones paints himself in order to learn about "le Moi," the Me. There are nine fascinating self portraits in the show. As a technician Jones knows the compositional gambit of using a bright splat, this time a red brush tip, in order to "set up" a painting. He does this in the marvelous THE ARTIST POSING AS ARTIST in which he's shown at work in a studio pleasantly cluttred with objects and symbols.
I REFLECT ON WATER is a Jones par excellence. In this striking painting the artist has painted himself as two triangles within circles --- well, within two half circles! His arms bend at the elbows, and his hands are clasped. Thus, he's triangular! His hair is as white as Merlin's, or any wizard's, while he peers into his own reflection which seems to reside in a pool of the night sky, or the universe. He is encircled by strips (medicine hoops?) of eco blues and greens, of white and black, and a few stars glitter in the surrounding darkness. --- From across the room this portait reminds me of a peace sign. --- "Don't look for any hidden narrative, rather respond with your own ideas," Jones has printed on a placard elsewhere in the exhibit.
In one portrait Jones has depicted himself, his wife Karen who is an art therapist, and his son Morgan, a strong infant. The triad is, perhaps, Jones' U.U. portrait of a classical holy family --- loving parents and a child. Karen's lovely straight-planed face glows; she has short hair; she wears a dull lime green dress against which she cradles Morgan, a fine strong baby. Don, the tall Joseph figure, gazes over Karen's shoulder, his face in shadows.
THE SHIMMER
Jone's landscapes, and yes, many of his other paintings, emit a a rare sheen. Whether to label certain paintings as "acrylic" or "oil" proved a conundrum. --- Something else seemed to be going on! When queried the artist explained that he works in "mixed media," that he uses, and combines, layers of polyurethane varnishes and acrylics for his paintings. He says he doesn't know "anyone else who does it just like this, although I've tried to teach other painters to do it."
In the center of MY NEIGHBORS YARD IN SPRING (24 x 36 inches) one large tree empowers, "lights up," the painting from the center, emits a glory of white blossoms that have dropped in a circle under it. In the background, the neighbor's low slung house and the meld of aquas above it, have been appropriately, sketchily, painted. In the right corner a tall audacious forsythia explodes with unabashed yellow. In the distance small navy blue (!) bushes form a row against the house. Here's a contra dance! --- Each color sashays, if gently, with the other. Yet, this painting explodes with spring. --- The Shimmer has done its thing.
AFTER THE RAIN. If you love Jones' "Spring" painting, his gorgeous, yet familiar condo-scape, After the Rain, will blow you away. In my opinion you won't find a better contemporary landscape anywhere. And you'll have to look far and wide to find a similar natural light, or sheen, that glitters as it does in Don Jones' After the Rain.
BALLERINAS AND GROTESQUES
Jones' simple pastel-like renderings of costumed ballerinas are naturally posed and appealing. His DRAGON FLY brings the green mist of Avalon to an arabesque penchee. His version is as charming as Anna Pavlova's in vintage posters for "Dragonfly." As is typical of Jones work, the dancers nearly "fill up" their large frames.
The artist's forays into abstract art are vivid and successful. EXPRESSIVE DANCER, NO EXIT, and INSPIRATION WON'T STAY ON THE CANVAS, are but three of his quality abstracts which include overlays and bold lines.
The artist shines at his own brand of social commentary which means that he expects viewers to, calmly, fill in their own dots. THE LAST FLOWER is a strong abstract expessionist work, a rush of bold strokes, that speaks to the urgency of ecological issues. Here the ultra urbanized have thronged to see a single dandelion, "the last flower."
Although we may read our own meaning into the grotesque and murky expressionist painting which presents scowling elders sitting against a wall, SMILE AT SOMEONE TODAY, indeed, speaks of Jones' concern for the warehousing of the elderly, for their being forced to become "other."
The Gallery is in the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 93 W. Weisheimer. Myra Hine is the curator. Jones' paintings are also displayed in the halls and in the vast and pleasing Worship Center. If the church is open, the art show is available. Admission, like your many-splendored thoughts and reactions to the art, is open and free. Call 267-4946 for hours.
posted by Liz James at 2:25 PM
