Leslie Sacks Gallery | Jonas Wood : Editions and Monoprints
Late Winter 2021
Jonas Wood : Editions and Monoprints
Leslie Sacks Gallery
In-Person Viewing:
2525 Michigan Avenue B6, Santa Monica, CA 90404 USA
Virtual Viewing:
http://www.lesliesacks.com/exhibitions/jonas-wood-editions-monoprints
Known for his colorful and compressed depictions of the people, places, and things that populate his daily life, Los Angeles-based painter Jonas Wood creates works that bear clear traces of his biography in both form and content. Wood’s grandfather was an amateur painter whose personal collection of art included works by Alexander Calder, Robert Motherwell, and Helen Frankenthaler. These artists, in addition to other modern masters ranging from Henri Matisse to David Hockney, have inspired Wood’s signature use of playful geometries, bold colors, and a distinct graphic style. Wood’s family members are recurrent characters in his paintings, as are the ceramics produced by his wife, artist Shio Kusaka, stressing the importance of familial dynamics in shaping identity, a notion central to his approach.
Excerpt: Dallas Museum of Art, Jonas Wood solo exhibition 2019
“My parents first took my sisters and me to the Metropolitan Museum when we were kids. For a long time I never went back. As an adult I started traveling to New York City more frequently and my relationship with the museum continued. I started making drawings at the Met with a ballpoint pen on hotel stationery in 2007. I focused mostly on Greek vessels as well as some Oceanic and African objects. I took these small pen drawings back to my studio and reworked them in charcoal or pencil on paper.”
Jonas Wood, A History of the Met: Volume I, published 2010
