Rachel Jones a shorn root

For her first solo exhibition in China, Rachel Jones presents a body of new paintings at the Long Museum in Shanghai.

This new group of paintings, made specifically for the exhibition, marks a significant development in Jones’s ongoing interest in the mouth as a central motif in her work. In these paintings, the focus shifts from the rows of teeth that have previously run across Jones’s canvases to the lone structure of a single tooth.

Activated by the cacophonies of colour laid down beneath in oil stick and pastel, the outlined shape of the tooth is repeated across the paintings as a symbolic shorthand for interior experience, particularly the interiority of Black lived experience, in a mode that is untethered from direct bodily representation. 

 

 

Embracing the expansive architecture of the Long Museum galleries, the presentation of new works is conceived as an extension of the contrasts explored in the works themselves. Colossal paintings are presented alongside small-scale works, while the vibrant hues and tactile surfaces of the canvases are accentuated by the soft, grey concrete of the walls behind.

Establishing a dynamic to-and-fro as viewers move from painting to painting, the space is transformed into one of conversation, as each individual brings their own perspective into dialogue with the works on show, allowing memories, experiences and feelings to circulate freely, unrestrained from prescriptive narrative readings.

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