Nathan Jones's recent paintings combine the rich history of Japanese nineteenth-century woodblock printmaking with the realist oil-painting tradition of Western Art. His work borrows the Eastern pictorial devises of simplification, abstraction and decoration, yet retains the exacting realism found in the West.
Nathan’s latest bird paintings feature trompe-l’oeil Japanese prints inhabiting the same space as the birds themselves, creating an enjoyable frisson between the ‘real’ birds and the ‘fake’ prints, and between the painted frames of these prints and the very real physical black frames that the artist has chosen for these canvases.
This new collection of paintings includes the pair The Poet’s Journey and The Poet’s Lover, of which the artist says:
'I wanted to paint an epic romance in the spirit of the Japanese prints: in the first canvas, the poet is about to embark on a challenging journey through a wintery landscape; in the second canvas, his lover reads a letter he has written to her, whilst behind her his epic journey is repeated in a print she has hung on her wall. Whether the lovers are parting or will soon be reunited remains unclear - I have a feeling that only the birds know how this story ends.’
Nathan Jones gained an MA in Fine Art: Painting from Wimbledon School of Art in 2004. He exhibits regularly, has twice been included in The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and has recently exhibited at The Saatchi Gallery, London.