“I’m not going to paint something that doesn’t have anything to do with me. Of all of the possible things I could paint, the thing that interests me is something that I can get close enough to in order to paint it honestly.”
Jonas Wood’s (b. 1977, Boston, Massachusetts) colorful, patterned, intricate works span genres, encompassing interior scenes, still lifes, landscapes, and portraits. Wood grew up with an appreciation for art as his father was an architect and his grandfather had an extensive collection. After obtaining a B.A. in psychology from Hobart and Williams Smith College, Wood went on to study painting and drawing at the University of Washington in Seattle. After graduating, he worked as an assistant for artist Laura Owens for two years, an experience he views as an extension of graduate school. The artist currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and fellow artist Shio Kusaka, whose ceramics often appear in his works. While seemingly quotidian, common objects, Wood imbues his objects with psychological import and memory in compressed, layered works featuring variegated perspectives in a vein reminiscent of Cubism, Pop art, and works by Henri Matisse and David Hockney. Wood also maintains active drawing and printmaking practices.
