Talk Art

It's Frieze week!!! We meet painter Jonas Wood to discuss his new solo exhibitions with Gagosian in London.

Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Jonas Wood, opening at the Grosvenor Hill gallery in London on October 7, 2024. These works see Wood extend the unmistakable visual language that he has developed over two decades, exploring the dynamics of color, pattern, and space through the treatment of recurring subjects, including plants, family, and interiors. At once exuberant and obsessive, intimate and imaginative, the paintings on view—like much of Wood’s work—are marked by the interplay of apparent opposites.

Wood’s compositions are characterized by sudden disjunctures, the collision of contrasting graphic passages, and sly shifts of scale and perspective, all within a compressed picture plane. These qualities grow out of his elaborate studio process: the artist works from photographs that he frequently alters and collages by hand, which, in turn, form the basis for preparatory drawings from which the paintings derive. Through these stages, he transforms volumes, surfaces, and textures into dense blocks of pattern and vibrant color.

A feeling of intimacy is palpable, too, in the portrait of Wood’s wife (the artist Shio Kusaka) and their two children, titled Shio, Momo, and Kiki with Leaf Masks. Based on a photograph taken in the couple’s shared studio, the painting presents a playful moment, with the kids, in their pajamas, and Kusaka holding up masks improvised from large leaves taken off one of the copious plants around them, as if dressing up as one of his paintings. Other works on view represent family through their creations rather than as themselves: Wall of Fame portrays a wall from Wood’s studio crowded with his children’s art; Shio Shrine imagines a compact staging of work Kusaka made over the course of two decades; and Still Life with Coffee and Minibook features paintings by the children as well as a book of Kusaka’s art, arranged among potted plants and a cup of coffee. These works entail a deft intermixing of subject and object, making and staging, art and life.

Concurrent with the exhibition, Wood is taking over Gagosian Burlington Arcade from October 7 to November 23, 2024. Wallpaper and prints by the artist are on view in the gallery, while posters, artist-designed hats, and books, including a new catalogue that accompanies Wood’s exhibition at Grosvenor Hill, are available in the Gagosian Shop.

Jonas Wood's new solo exhibition runs from October 7–November 23, 2024 at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, W1K 3QD.

His concurrent solo of prints and books runs for the same dates at Gagosian, Burlington Arcade, London, W1J OQJ.

Jonas' new print will launch exclusively from www.countereditions.com at the end of October to fundraise for the charity Choose Love.

Follow @JonasBRWood

Visit @Gagosian and learn more: https://gagosian.com/exhibitions/2024/jonas-wood/