Sheep Jones is showing new paintings at Rentz Gallery until the end of this month. Most of her paintings feature a simple house in the center of the canvas, like a Jennifer Bartlett house, although Sheep's work seems less conceptually inclined and more about seeing what she can do with paint - using the house as a sort of template. I asked the gallery to send me some jpgs of her work and they did straightaway (thank you), but I'm not using them because they weren't good enough - sorry. These paintings with all of their color and texture and incidents need to be visited to be fully appreciated.
Grid House (24"x24") is a black house with a great door, a blue frame enclosing wavy grooves of brown paint. Next to the door is a square smear of olive and gray over black which somehow has the feel of a shuttered window. Upstairs is a second window of pink, blue, green, black, white, and olive.
Cabins on a Long Pond (10"x14") is a centered line-up of three yellow awkward house shapes, each one leaning differently, and their reflected images directly below. They look like pencil tips.
My favorites were not the house paintings but the three dark, slightly nostalgic cityscapes in the alcove behind the desk, especially Augusta (20"X20"). Wow. This small, almost black painting really knocked my socks off.
Dear Martin,
ReplyDeleteSheep is one of my favorite artists. She's also a terrific person. I regret you don't have suitable images to post.
Ask her to tell you the story about her name - it's a great story.
James
James - I know the gist of the story, one of her sons told me. Her future father-in-law gave her the nickname because when she was young (a child? a teen?) - her hair was always in her face and she always followed his son (her future husband) everywhere. He started calling her Sheep.
ReplyDeleteThe images thing is my fault really, I was specific in what paintings I wanted images of and the gallery was quick in it's response. I'm just too picky.