Jonas Wood: Biography & Artwork

Jonas
Wood

Living and working in Los Angeles seems to have influenced the work of Jonas Wood, whose paintings escape categorisation in their simplified aesthetic blend of textures and scenery. Interested in buying or selling a Wood original print and edition? Browse artworks from the artist's portfolio and enquire today. We provide print value advice and market consultancy, with zero obligation to sell.

Biography

An artist who escapes any singular categorisation, Jonas Wood’s colourful, intricate works are instantly recognisable. Of his work he has said 'I’m interested in exploring the spaces that I’ve inhabited and the psychological impact they’ve had on me and my memories of them…and then I can create a new memory of that space.'

Born in Boston, Wood grew up surrounded by his grandfather’s art collection, which contained works by Francis Bacon, Alexander Calder, Jim Dine, Robert Motherwell, Larry Rivers and Andy Warhol. In 1999 he graduated with a BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York, majoring in psychology and minoring in studio art. He then attended the University of Washington, Seattle, where he received an MFA in painting and drawing in 2002. As a student Wood worked primarily in collage, making photographic montages using images of himself, his friends and their environment.

Jonas Wood has seen enormous success across the globe over the past decade, with his work being shown in major cities and galleries across the world.

From working primarily with photographic montages as a student, Wood moved to large painted canvases that have been compared to Cubism in the way they show a scene or an object from more than one viewpoint. Still, Wood has not left photography aside, and uses photography to assemble this multi perspective composition before creating the image in paint.

Wood’s brightly coloured canvases and distinctive style make much of his work easily recognisable, created with bold line work, flattened forms and vibrant colour. After his first solo exhibition at the Hammer Museum in LA in 2010, the artist has continued to ride the wave of his success by creating a series of public artworks and murals in New York in 2014 and then at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA in 2016. In 2015 Wood exhibited alongside his wife Shio Kusaka at Gagosian Hong Kong. In 2019 The Dallas Museum put on Wood’s first retrospective, showing 33 of his artworks.

Wood’s work is also held in some major public collections, from the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA to The Saatchi Gallery in London and from New York’s MOMA to the Guggenheim museums. Because he often works in distinct categories, the catalogues of Wood's works are equally grouped by motifs and style. Interiors (2012) groups work depicting interior spaces; Pots (2015) shows the pots painted throughout his career until this point - flattened vessels in bright, simple colours. Portraits (2016) details portraits of Wood’s friends and family while Clippings (2017) shows his work depicting stems, leaves, and flowers.

Wood draws influence from the past, from other artist’s work, and from his lived environment. Often his work is compared to Cubism in the way it uses multiple viewpoints to portray a single object or environment, or Pop Art in the way he simplifies colour and form, creating bright and bold imagery from life.
Wood shares a studio space with wife and artist Shio Kusaka, and the pair often draw from each other’s work in their practise; indeed, many of the pots in Wood’s work are inspired by the work of Kusaka. Often the couple are inspired by other artists whose work appears in their own collection, including Alighiero Boetti, Michael Frimkess and Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Mark Grotjahn, and Ed Ruscha. The couple have also been said to reference their children’s storybooks and drawings in their work.
Originally majoring in psychology from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Wood has talked about consciously exploring spaces that he has existed in and objects he has experienced, and the psychological impact these have on his memory of spaces, objects and times in his life. On a basic level he is painting things he has seen, but he is also exploring his experience of that space, object or time through his art.
Wood has said 'You could call [my work] a visual diary or even a personal history. I’m not going to paint something that doesn’t have anything to do with me. Of all of the possible things I could paint, the thing that interests me is something that I can get close enough to in order to paint it honestly.'

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Jonas Wood

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Biography

Wood's art between Cubism and Pop Art

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Related artists

Google reviews

4.9

Michelle Swann

David Popik

Deborah Ann Bell

VICKIE JAMES

Li Smith

Ian Hall

About

Contact

Jonas
Wood

Sell Your Art
with Us