Jane Jones
In our quick paced culture, we are hyper-stimulated with visual media, which has caused our sense of vision to become blind to many things of incredible loveliness and consequence, such as the extraordinary and exquisite beauty of everyday things, like fruit on a tree, the majesty of a glorious sunset, or the magical transformation of a flower from a bulb. These are the things that artists remind us about, they point the way.
I paint flowers and other bits of nature, in part, because I think they are so exquisitely beautiful. The other reasons are more philosophical. We live in a very small and rarified space where the earth is touched by sunlight. Compared to the space of the universe, it is a very small area indeed. This small space has all of the elements necessary to sustain life, and plants are necessary to draw those elements out of the soil and process them into forms that our bodies can use and their splendor feeds our souls. My paintings present their powerful, fragile beauty.
I place rounded river stones in my paintings because they are symbols of this rarified planet, and sometimes I stack them like ancient cairns, which have been used for centuries to point the way on a path or journey.
I create my paintings with spare compositions because I think that is the best way to present the beauty and importance of my subjects. We live in an artificial and dehumanizing world that is all too often detached from the beauty of nature. In nature there is honesty, elegance and harmony that we do not truly appreciate, but as creatures that are a part of it, we deeply desire connection with it. My paintings freeze moments in time that focus on nature; moments of connection that elevate us.