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Latest Artist's Video:
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Artist Exhibitions:
Selected One person
Exhibitions
2011 Dennis Michael Jones,
A Solo Exhibition of His
Installations at The Art
Gallery of Windsor, Canada
2009 Dennis Michael Jones,
a Solo Exhibition of Paintings
at The O. K. Harris Gallery,
New York.
2007 Dennis Michael Jones,
Oakland University Art
Gallery, Oakland University,
Rochester, MI
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Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
O K Harris Gallery, New York,
NY.
Art Gallery of Windsor,
windsor, Canada.
Oakland University Art Gallery
The Drawing Center Slide
Registry, New York, NY.
www.drawingcenter.org
Artist Space Artists File, New
York, NY.
www.artistspace.org...
Further Information
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Artist Reviews:
2009 Windsor Biennial: Kick
Out The Jams, posted by Byrne
McLaughlin on Canadian Art,
6/4/09.
2009 Windsor Biennial, review
by Paul Breschuk at Akimblog,
posted May 27th, 2009
Fundamental(ist) Exhibition
Catalog, published by Oakland
University Art Gallery. 25
images and an essay by Dick
Goody, Gallery Curator.
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Further Information
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Artist Statement for Dennis Jones
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Paintings are easy to talk about if you’re talking to yourself, but become elusive when another's eyes are involved. That said these paintings are about discourse. When I’m painting the discourse is private, between the painting and me. It’s akin to talking about talking about paintings. Paintings are their own language. It’s not about making a picture – and it’s not about making something where the end result is utilitarian ¯ it is not intended for any purpose. The language of painting is internal, embedded in the place of ideas, yet at the same time it’s about the obvious concrete materiality of the object directly in front of us. This duality (idea/object) is something that has always fascinated me.
The words we use in daily conversations enable us to navigate the world. Words (texts) are ubiquitous, but the language of painting (syntax), for most, is something forgotten in early childhood. Paintings operate in the interchangeable region between thinking (language) and image (object).
I paint words, the skepticism, propaganda, delusions, absurdity, ambivalence and discontent all accumulating.
The following statement pertains to my drawing installation titled -
Sometimes I wonder what you’d say if I let you speak
Each time I’ve shown this installation a majority read the statements only at face value, literally, as though I were directing my words at a specific person in response to some incident. I’ve deliberately framed the statements to suggest such a conversation, using various pronouns, ‘It’, ‘I’, ‘You’ and ‘We’, etc…interchangeably, but, in reality it is an exclusively private talk between the drawings and me. There is a story here, which is about
unlocking my voice and the obstacles that keep it in check - whether they are real, imagined, self-imposed, or beyond my control - encountered along the way to its current refinement - hence the title. It also includes the stumbling blocks of communication, how preconceived beliefs frame what we think is being said, or heard and how this can polarize and negate another’s intentions. Each of the 1002 statements repeatedly begins with the adverb, ‘Sometimes’ and connotes an ambiguous positive or negative association with the words that follow. Conceived of in free association, with one thought suggesting another that mirrors methods used in psychotherapy, I’ve tried not to edit my thoughts and accept the risk of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. I find the resulting discord intriguing as it extends meaning.
This series of charcoal drawings focuses on the discourse that takes place between me and the work at hand. Many diverse thoughts surface as I'm working and instead of ignoring them I write them down. I’m fascinated by the way the drawings talk to one another when viewed as a grouping and how they communicate, as the dialogue expands, to suggest a panoramic view of human interactions. The statements include psychological, sociological, sexual, scatological, religious, philosophical, political and cultural references. More specifically, the drawings communicate anger, frustration, anxiety, discontentment and skepticism, ambivalence, delusions, absurdity and a measure of humor. I want to include the whole shit pile: the profane and the irreverent, all the distracted, inconsequential, contradictory, complex and incredible human mess. The installation stretches notions of the private and public; the high and low; what is considered acceptable or inappropriate; it exposes the fleeting thoughts that seemingly pop into my (our) head(s) that occur ever so slightly below the surface; often overlooked or unacknowledged, dismissed, suppressed or denied; it can be read as an obsessive accumulation of the momentary, banal, quotidian and extremely intimate experiences necessary to human relationships.
The accompanying CD recording of my reading each drawn statement aloud is another layer of communication. The viewer can read the statements and also hear my reading, which is a reverse, yet parallel experience of my making each drawing. Using text, I hear the statement in my head and when the drawing is completed, I see it in its visible form. I think the combination of sight and sound directly engages the viewer and immerses us all into a more completely, interactive multi-sensory experience. There is an order to the installation of the drawings that is coordinated with my voice on the CD. If your timing happens to be right when you arrive in the room you can read and hear the same phrase simultaneously. All the drawings are hung in the order that they were completed.
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