PATRICK MIKHAIL IN MONTRÉAL PRESENTS STATIC STORM, AN EXHIBITION OF NEW PAINTINGS BY JANET JONES
MONTRÉAL
JANUARY 20 TO MARCH 9, 2024
ARTIST RECEPTION
SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 2024
2 P.M. TO 6 P.M.
PATRICK MIKHAIL is pleased to present STATIC STORM, an exhibition of new paintings by artist JANET JONES. In this third solo presentation with the gallery, Jones presents a new body of work that explores her belief that artists should act as the early warning systems of a society.
In Static Storm, Jones references and makes current the German cultural critic Walter Benjamin’s idea of the “storm of progress,” weaving together her perceptions of digital technologies, speculative urban futures, and feminisms. Through a site-specific gallery installation, she presents new paintings that function as assemblages of networked ideas, colours, lines, and shapes that are both beautiful and somewhat menacing at the same time. These paintings interconnect to each other and to the gallery space, creating an experiential installation for the viewer.
Born in Montréal, Jones’ professional practice has been rooted in her experiences as a young woman growing up in a working class, immigrant area of downtown Montréal with socially/politically engaged parents. She views the urban environment through the lens of such concepts as public/private space, surveillance, gendered and racialized spaces, the techno-sublime, spectacle and feminist geography. As a woman abstract painter, most influenced by the lineage of geometric abstraction, including her early mentors, Guido Molinari and Yves Gaucher, she has always been aware of the strong male tradition within this style. Her work both honours and critiques that past by testing it in both form and concept. Instead of seeing abstraction as autonomous, she chooses to go against the grain; to create points of tension, collision, and intensity that reflect upon our current world.
Janet Jones has a BFA in painting and photography from Concordia University, studying painting with Guido Molinari and Yves Gaucher; an MFA from York University; and a PhD from New York University. She is a Professor in the Department of Visual Arts, & Art History, York University, Toronto where she teaches painting and graduate courses in contemporary theory. Jones’ work has been exhibited across Canada, and in Los Angeles, New York, England, Germany, France, and China. Her recent projects include: Gathering Fictions: A Dialogue on Painting, at the, Varley Art Gallery 2022; and PICTURA the Montréal Painting Biennale in 2020. Her work is in numerous public and corporate collections including; Musée d’art contemporain (MAC), Montréal; Winnipeg Art Gallery; MacLaren Art Centre; Robert McLaughlin Art Gallery; MacKenzie Art Gallery; The Schulich Collection, Toronto; BMO; TD Bank; AIMIA; and Google Corporation.
STATIC STORM will be presented within the context of the MAC SéminArts Spring educational program, and the POST-INVISIBLES Biennial dedicated to women artists in the visual arts field.