MAINSITE Contemporary Art~ Curtis Jones

I ground my work formally in drawing and printmaking and tend to rely on repitition and meditative process to arrive at my solutions. Repitition appeals to me because of its associations with modern production and expansionist philosophies on the cultural scale as well as various forms of mania and transcendent states of mind (both advantagous and deleterious) on the human scale. The inherent tension between these aspects informs the majority of my output. I like to explore elements of installation art but have little desire to create complete environments. Instead I prefer to have each piece I create stand on its own while also contributing to a larger narritive. This allows me to achieve my results without the assistance of automation and keep my work based in individual experience.-Curtis Jones

NEARSIGHTED
Curtis Jones
Mainsite Contemporary Art
October-November 2008

This show features selections from two separate bodies of work; "In Boxes" and "Urban Flight".

"In Boxes" explores attitudes and tendencies passed down by my family and their influence on my world view and self image. Much of this work deals with how humor, lore, and common sense stood in for religion and dogma in our devoutly secular home and how this has shaped the way I connect and interpret the world around me. The numerical and formal specifics of this work derive direclty from specific biographic (and autobiographic) details.

"Urban Flight" is a newer body of work inspired by my recent move from Oakland, California to Norman, Oklahoma and the process of coming to grips with my return to a "suburban" environment similar to the one I grew up in. The work revolves around the creation of fantastic "weeds" that I would eventually like to install and photograph in the cracks of my driveway. I find the futility and absurdity of keeping up appearances (for no other reason than vanity) to be hilarious when set against the backdrop of conformity and uniformity entailed in "planned communities".

In addition to this, I'll be creating title cards for all the peices in the show with some specific interpretive details on them, so that the viewer can see where each piece came from.