Artist Oliver Jones strikingly life-like portraits questioning the pursuit of beauty and will go on display in a major solo exhibition in Los Angeles this Autumn.
Trained at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Jones is co-founder of A3 Project Space and Studios, the gallery and artist studios based in Digbeth, Birmingham and his studio at A3 will be open as part of Digbeth First Fridays on Friday 4 July, 6-8pm for a glimpse of his work before heading to LA.
“The works portray the visceral and often bizarre steps taken by people in their pursuit of physical ‘perfection’: a man being prepared for plastic surgery, a woman scorching under a sunbed and, perhaps most poignant of all, the artist’s own baby daughter with surgical lines marked out on her face.
In Get the London Look – the title a riff on the famous advertising slogan of Rimmel cosmetics – a homeless man named Ron stares out at the viewer. Whilst the title implies an image of London that is prosperous and glamorous, the reality for Ron and the thousands of other rough sleepers like him is a city full of hardship. The work simultaneously points to the illusory powers of advertising whilst drawing the viewers’ attention to an individual who is overlooked in everyday life.”
“My drawings aim to challenge the culture of perfectionism, and rather than present a version of reality based on falsification, aim to ‘re-advertise’ a truthful image of the flesh,” comments Jones.
In 2012 he appeared in BBC 2’s Show Me the Monet exhibition, he has twice been shortlisted for The Threadneedle Prize and his work is owned by private collectors worldwide.
Unit A3, 2 Bowyer Street, Digbeth, Birmingham, B10 0SA
Oliver Jones – Love the Skin You’re In
September 12 – October 25 2014
GUSFORD | los angeles
7016 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038
Image credit: Oliver Jones. Dramatically Reduces Lines (2014). Coloured chalk pastel on Paper. Copyright: the artist.
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