The work on view at Greenfield Community Television is a smattering of pieces executed pre- and mid-pandemic. As an unintentional response to the grimness and uncertainty that the pandemic brings, these works are suffused with cheery color, imaginative flora and fauna, and bodies that seem lifted from a strange antiquity- like ancient goddess figures with multi-colored haloes. “I’m hopeful that my work will brighten this workspace as well as pose questions for those viewing it.” Why did the artist use collage so frequently? Why the anthropomorphic flowers? Why can’t I STOP looking at this piece? For it is every artist’s hope that their work leaves an impact with a viewer, no matter how great or small; and ideally leaves a trace of their alchemistic magic behind. “My work is an exercise in experiencing visual pleasure, as I welcome a moment’s hedonism; however, my overarching themes are up for interpretation.”
Jules Jones is a queer, disabled artist living and working in Franklin County, MA. They studied painting and drawing at Greenfield Community College where they received their Associates degree in Fine Arts in 2014. They continued onto UMass Amherst to complete their Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Arts (with a minor in Art History) in 2016, incorporating printmaking into their artistic practice. After graduating they remained in the area to paint and show locally. They have exhibited work throughout the Pioneer valley, the Berkshires, Hudson, NY, and Brooklyn, NY. Jones’ work has delved into themes of fat femme body image via wall sized self- portraits in charcoal, painterly abstraction, long distance digital romance, mental health, and racial injustice. A hallmark of their work is the complexity they achieve through layering line, color, and shape with the use of watercolor, ink, and pastel. Jones’ collage and print paintings incorporate print media such as monotype, lithography, woodcut, linoleum, and screen prints along with pieces of paintings on paper. Each element adds diversity in texture to the picture planes’ surface; their mosaic-like paintings absolutely challenge the notion that painting, and printmaking are separate artistic actions. Each finished work becomes a quilt comprised of sections of paintings, drawings, and prints, some dating as far back as the early 2000’s in the form of childhood and adolescent doodles. Consequently, their paintings and (work in general) is as much a collaboration with time itself, as with the media used throughout. This furious and studious up-cycling of self-made materials has led to a precise visual language and artistic process all their own.