Rachel Jones MIKE’S TOOTH, 2022
Rachel Jones investigates the sense of self as a visual, visceral experience using abstracted motifs of the mouth and teeth, as she explains, ‘to communicate ideas about the interiority of Black bodies and their lived experience.’ Literal and symbolic entry points to the body, these forms are repeated across series to create associative, even familial, relationships between works that underscore their kinship as part of the artist’s ongoing investigation of identity.
The same critical eye that she turns upon questions of cultural identity and selfhood is applied to the language of painting itself: ‘Having a simple starting point with a mouth and teeth suddenly becomes infinite in its possibilities.’
Working intuitively, Jones uses oil sticks on canvas to build up layers of colour from which forms arise with startling immediacy, combining a kaleidoscopic palette with bold motifs and an interplay of rich textures.
