Breathe In

Alan Jones' paintings aim to take the viewer through time and place. His latest exhibition, "Breath in", started out close to home yet ultimately led somewhere far more distant and ethereal.

At a simplistic level, this body of work could read as a continuation of “Still Life” (2021, Olsen Gallery) with text as a key visual element set against autobiographical backdrops from Jones’ everyday life. The unending summer rains of early 2022 put pay to Jones’ plans to paint the Coogee coastal landscape en plein air. Painting in his studio physically disconnected Jones from the immediacy of the landscape and forced a renewed focus on internal cognitive points of reference.

The pandemic induced need to constantly frame and reframe life plans requires resilience and mental agility. Change is the new black. Mindfulness and inner focus presented Jones simultaneously with both a natural coping mechanism and inspiration for the paintings. His aim to get outside in nature ultimately and ironically led him back inside his mind. In seeking to reflect that complexity in these works, Jones has achieved a kind of synergistic alchemy – the paintings read as neither exclusively landscape nor text – yet fuse both elements to create something altogether different.

The exhibition offers the viewer a visual healing balm for the soul transporting us from the ordinary to the incorporeal.

Take a breath and take a look.