ART CITIES: Hong Kong-Jonas Wood

In his boldly colored, graphic works—including paintings, drawings, and prints—Jonas Wood combines art historical references with images of the objects, interiors, and people that comprise the fabric of his life. Translating the three-dimensional world around him into flat color and line, he confounds expectations of scale and vantage point.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gagosian Archive

The concept for Jonas Wood’s solo exhibition stemmed from the artist’s mid-career survey at the Dallas Museum of Art in 2019 when he reencountered “Polka Dot Orchid” (2015), a painting he had made of a single plant against a black background. The work was hung alongside other paintings of isolated plants in a room wallpapered with repeating tennis balls. Following that exhibition, and over the course of the lockdown period of 2020, Wood continued to consider the idea of making works on black grounds and the opportunity of hanging them together. The new paintings continue Wood’s exploration into motifs of fruits, flowers, and houseplants. Depicting brilliantly hued orchids and succulents, full bunches of bananas, and a robust monstera plant, he uses plants as a vehicle to experiment with color and geometry, isolating the forms on monochromatic backgrounds to explore color theory, pattern, and line. Wood planned the installation from his studio in Los Angeles knowing that he would not be able to visit Hong Kong in person due to travel restrictions. The architectural model, which appears in the catalogue, became essential to this process. As part of his conceptual vision, a room of the exhibition will be installed with floral wallpaper designed by the artist as part of his ongoing interest in pattern and in the repurposing and recontextualizing of his own imagery. Wood develops his hybrid compositions from multiple sources, including photographs appropriated from magazines and representations of his own plant specimens. Some works also incorporate additional natural and artificial elements; “Small Yellow Orchid with Baby Snake” (2020) features a coiled serpent nestled in its basal leaves, while basketballs—a recurring motif for the artist, an avid sports fan—meld with orchid petals in “Bball Orchid with Dots #2” (2021). Plants have remained a key subject for Wood throughout his career, beginning with his arrival in Los Angeles in 2003. Originally from the East Coast, he was astounded by the variety of flora he found in Southern California, and the tropical plants featured in his paintings reflect not only the houseplants that populate his home and studio, but also the region’s climate and cultural identity. The lush growth that inspired these works is thus linked to his immediate environs, and to the semi-autobiographical impetus of his practice. Like his predecessors Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and David Hockney, Wood also uses still-life painting as an opportunity to explore abstract forms while extending the modernist impulse to merge art and life.

Born in Boston, Jonas Wood grew up surrounded by the art collection of his grandfather. He received a BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, in 1999, majoring in psychology and minoring in studio art, then attended the University of Washington, Seattle, where he received an MFA in painting and drawing in 2002. During his student years, he explored making collage-like works based on montaged photographs that he took of himself, his friends, and their surroundings. These early photo-based paintings possess a darker and more volatile energy that is not as immediately evident in the work Wood is known for today. Shortly after art school, Wood moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for the painter Laura Owens for a few years. Wood currently shares a studio with artist Shio Kusaka, his wife since 2002, and the pair often work in tandem, motifs migrating from Kusaka’s ceramic vessels to Wood’s paintings and back again. Common subjects include plants, portraits, and sports imagery, all of which come together in Wood’s lush interiors and intricate still lifes. He and Kusaka also incorporate imagery from their expansive art collection as well as from their children’s storybooks and drawings.

Photo: Left: Jonas Wood, Yellow Flower with Lines 2, 2021 Oil and acrylic on linen, 42 × 36 in (106.7 × 91.4 cm), © Jonas Wood. Photo: Marten Elder, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian. Right: Jonas Wood, Black Monstera Still Life, 2021 Oil and acrylic on linen, 58 × 45 in (147.3 × 114.3 cm), © Jonas Wood. Photo: Marten Elder, Courtesy the artist and Gagosian

Info: Gagosian Gallery, 7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong Duration: 23/1182021-15/1/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, https://gagosian.com