Admiring the bold graphic paintings of Los Angeles-based artist, Jonas Wood. Wood cites as his inspiration artists from David Hockney to Alex Katz and Lucien Freud. While distinctly contemporary, Wood pays direct homage to artists from Matisse to Picasso in his compositions. On an interview with UCLA blog Hammer he shares some insights into his work:
“I first started painting plants after grad school as a means to paint from life. When I moved to LA I was really taken with the plant life (succulents mostly) and started painting plants more and more.â€
“I make paintings from drawings. I make collages and make paintings and drawings from them. Making studies gives me a blue print for how I want to make a painting. With these new plants, most were made from drawings. I made hundreds of drawings of these new plants. In those drawings I was working out the kinks and trying to locate what felt right. I made some paintings of these new plants that were terrible. I cut them up and glued pieces to new canvases and made new configurations. Then I made paintings of these collages. “
“Color is something that I am really into. I guess everyone is into color in some way. Color is a balancing act. I see these new plant paintings as just an exercise in shape and color balance. Using local color is just a tool like perspective. You can see it and maybe you can use it to your advantage in some way, but it actually is pretty boring. When color challenges you, and tells you a plant is blue not green, then maybe color can ask you new questions about what you are seeing.â€
You can view more of his work on Google images, David Kordansky Gallery and Anton Kern Gallery.
Images: Courtesy of Jonas Wood.
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