The Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts

Artist Statement

The paintings are studio and field works in oil and watercolor based on my response to the landscape. The studio allows for size and details while the field demands simplicity. One serves the other for me in these two different approaches.

The imagery has been about my surroundings in rural northeast Connecticut. I am attracted to working farms. I feel a sort of kinship with the people who farm and their daily rituals. Also, I appreciate the architecture, equipment, fields, and animals.This narrative inclination goes back to my youth in North Carolina. As an elected member of The Connecticut Plein Air Society, I have begun to explore other farms and landscapes in the state through arrangement with The Working Lands Alliance that works for the preservation of Connecticut farmland. This has been a natural venue for me.

Until recently, I used about the same approach for fieldwork that I used in studio painting. Whether done inside, outside, or a combination of the two, I wanted all the paintings to be naturalistic, have strong compositions, involved textures, a range of colors, good paint quality, solid form, subtle value changes, space, everything, all the elements of visual art used in every piece. I came to realize, out of exhaustion, that I could work on location with a limited palette, minimal supplies, simplified subject matter, and produce consistent paintings. It was a revelation to me that the two ways of working did not have to look the same in style. I now think of these two approaches as separate and have a much better time with both of them.

While continuing to paint local surroundings, I have begun to explore and paint other parts of New England with trips to the Massachusetts Berkshire Mountains, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Maine’s Monhegan Island ,the Connecticut shore, and most recently, Providence Canyon in Georgia. The paintings are examples of my studio work and plein air travels.

Contact

E Mail:  jonesw@easternct.edu