Grenfell Campus Art Gallery will be exhibiting a retrospective of the work of Kent Jones from Jan. 12 -Feb. 18, 2017. The opening reception will take place on Thurs., Jan.12 from 4:30-6 p.m. with opening remarks at 5 p.m. All are welcome and refreshments will be served.
Mr. Jones recently retired from 27 years of teaching in the Visual Arts Program at Grenfell Campus
The exhibition, curated by Gloria Hickey, includes mixed media painting, drawing and 'motion images' as well as a survey of the artist's work in printmaking. The span of the print retrospective is from 1971 to 1998, the last year the artist worked in print media.
"The goal of the exhibition is… to strategically summarize through a select number of works the career of an award-winning figure who has been influential in Canadian art through his extensive studio practice and 27 years of teaching at the Grenfell Campus, Memorial University of Newfoundland in the Department of Visual Arts," said Ms. Hickey.
A consistent thread running through the artist's work both in print, painting, drawing and film is that of the psychological narrative. Many are inspired by poetry—for example, Science: The Railway Children is a response to the poem by Seamus Heaney. To underscore this, the exhibition will include a number of non-fiction stories written by the artist over the last two years.
Photo Credit:
Baldy and Nipper, 2012, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 37 x 56"
Escape, 1996, intaglio, 23 x 29"
Kent Jones received his BA in visual arts from the University of California in 1972, and his Higher Diploma in Fine Arts (HDFA) from the Slade School of Fine Art in London, England in 1974. Jones has had more than 50 solo exhibitions worldwide, showing in venues such as St. Patrick's Centre in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland, The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, the Mulvane Art Museum in Topeka, Kansas, the Curwen Gallery in London, England, and the Leyton Gallery in St. John's, NL. He has also been a part of over 100 group and juried exhibitions worldwide, in venues such as Tama University Art Gallery in Japan, the Barbican Centre and the Whitechapel Gallery in London England, and the Beijing Central Institute of Fine Art in China. In September 2015, he received a lifetime achievement award by Visual Arts Newfoundland and Labrador/CARFAC for his substantial contribution to visual culture in Newfoundland and Labrador.
