V22 ASHWINSTREET
SOME NOTES ON PETER JONES' RECENT PAINTINGS
We understand from the outset that some of the pictures in this large body of new works offer an expanded view on a world already created by Jones - they are populated by the same dark heavy clothed figures that are found in previous paintings, where they perform uncertain tasks and are seen at work, engaged in physical labour at sea, or possibly ploughing a field. Perhaps the task they are engaged in is constructing the very images under discussion here, and that they are effectively building and maintaining a world that is other than ours, complete with its own set of rules and governing forces. There are resonances with the sixteenth century Flemish School of picture making, however, these are most certainly and unavoidably English paintings being made now, paintings that reference a world that is lost, but which steers clear of being wistful or sentimental, appearing more as a world that can only occur in painting made in the way it is. Contained in this recent body of work are some generously sized paintings that mark a significant shift within this group, each depicting a single motif: a stick of rock leaning like a crumpled nose crashed zeppelin; a pair of scissors sitting sharp-end down in a jar; and a plug adaptor, three pins in the air like chimneys or crenulations, being both a fortress keep and a skull-like oubliette. These imagined objects of uncertain scale are described in a pared down manner and appear separated from any possible narrative - they take on the sense of haunted objects robbed of function, imbued with a sense of an uncertain foreboding and a melancholic tragedy.
Neal Tait March 2007
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