C O N T A C T        nicholas@njjones.co.uk

B I O        Born Berkshire, England, 1982. Based in London, England and Oslo, Norway.

N I C H O L A S   J O H N   J O N E S         a b o u t

I explore and question. Journeys (from the armchair or physically) inform thinking. I use painting, photography, ceramics, writing, curating, dialogue, and running a not for profit organisation as mediums to create and explore ideas. I try to look at how I live and think about how I can contribute and affect change. The act of questioning is the core of the work. I usually begin with a problem to overcome as a way to seek the unexpected. Often my physical works result from long periods of contemplation as I look to produce work that holds an impalpable but fundamental resonance. In seeking to affect change, I believe small personal shifts hold great value, as do wider social and critical reevaluations.

Two examples of writing on my work:

    “Practicing photography, sculpture, and painting, Nicholas John Jones plays with form and light in artworks both atmospheric and concrete. While his vivid photographs present color-saturated objects and his sculptures offer amorphous investigations of form, his paintings in oil on canvas or linen depict abstract patterns that resemble magnified organic matter.

Ethereal swaths of color cause the eye to blur in some paintings, while distinct lines and deliberate gestures convey a sense of unintelligible urgency in others. A counterpoint to his realistic photographic works, they read as meditations on the act of seeing—as though something ordinary has been placed under a microscope and in the process become entirely unrecognizable.”

Text copyright RH Contemporary, New York

It is the air,
some call it the heavens,
the sky, a troposphere,
I know it as a gaseous envelope surrounding the earth,
and a conventional/ highly unconventional unit of pressure.
Pressure, the pressure....pressure is for tyres, she said.
Someone spoke of an aura, character, colours and feelings
....I considered the mood, a mood, the ambience, the background, the
foreground, the ground, the continuance of the ground.
The surroundings, the place, the space,
the environment, its inhabitants,
the aura of the sea.
My endless impressions,
The rolling words, the taken and un takable.... photographs.  Also
evoked through sounds and smells....can atmosphere exist in memory, in
painting, who measures?
the qualities, the tones, the textures...more feelings and touches.
A warmth, a zest, a vitality,
vigour,
A sense of humour.
The force, the life, the resolution,
Sometimes it can be cut with a knife.

By Sheenagh B. Geohegan

L I N K S

a-n | Degrees unedited | Reviews | Slade School of Art - MA/MFA | 2011

O/NE No. 250 (22.03.2012), (Arts and culture magasine) | 2012

HEAD TO HEAD

W R I T I N G

2016

Cornelia Baltes at Limoncello, London, Artforum.com

2015

Alec Soth at Fotogalleriet, Oslo, fiskfrisk.com

Joseph Cornell at Royal Academy, London, Artforum.com

Varda Caivano at Victoria Miro, London, fiskfrisk.com

Hannah Ryggen at National Gallery, Oslo, Artforum.com

In search of an author at UKS, Oslo, fiskfrisk.com

Around, Matthew Musgrave at Supplement, London, fiskfrisk.com

COLLABORATE!, Edited by Jones, N. J. & Liotchev, I., UK, JKL Books

2014

Sarah Pettitt, written for exhibition handout for C.C.C., 2014, UK, at APT London

Signal :: Failure – variations on dystopic space, Edited by Michael Delacruz, 2014,

UK, JKL Books

2013

HEAD TO HEAD, Edited by Jones, N. J. & Liotchev, I., 2013. UK, Rogue Projects

S E L E C T E D   C U R A T I O N

COLLABORATE!, Oriel Sycharth Gallery, Glyndwr University, Wales, 2015

HEAD TO HEAD, Standpoint Gallery, London, 2014

HEAD TO HEAD, Rogue Projects, Manchester, 2013