Jonas Wood on flatness, family life and cartoon comparisons

Jonas Wood richly entangles art and life. The American painter’s new self-titled exhibition at Gagosian (Grosvenor Hill, London, until 23 November) is full of references to his family, Los Angeles studio and home. In Shio, Momo and Kiki in leaf masks (all paintings 2024), the American artist’s wife and two children are partly hidden by giant fronds, their eyes poking humorously through small holes. 10 Pigeon Hill Road transports viewers back in time, revealing Wood’s childhood home in a characteristically disjointed form, with the wall and ceiling seemingly poised to collapse inward. Their two pet dogs, past and present, come together lovingly Robot and bear.

His paintings are loaded with furniture, plants and references to the work of other artists, including the ceramics of his wife Shio Kusaka. Although Wood does not place particular importance on the personal significance of his settings and subjects, he is equally interested in the formal concerns of the paintings, these tender expressions of his own life convey a palpable sense of warmth. “I put a lot of emotion into the whole work,” the artist said in an interview with Artnet News. “I want to feel deeply connected to it. If it’s meaningful to me, I hope it transmits energy to the world and connects with people.”

View of the “Jonas Wood” installation. Artwork © Jonas Wood. Photo: Maris Hutchinson
Courtesy of Gagosian.

Some pieces contain subtler threads to their inner world, devoid of people or belongings. Chelseafor example, it is a detailed cityscape of New York’s iconic red brick buildings that reflects his first major exhibition in the city. For Wood, the piece captures the thrill of making it first as an artist. Even without this specific backstory, the painting evokes the highly recognizable side of Manhattan in which many young people will have hoped to one day realize their dreams.

Jonas Wood, Self portrait with cart, joint and phone from Home Depot (2024) © Jonas Wood. Photo: Marten Elder, courtesy of Gagosian.

A new painting, Self portrait with cart, joint and phone from Home Depotaddresses her own embodied experience, following recent weight loss. The piece depicts the artist hidden among an abundance of indoor plants and books, almost blending into the patterned wall behind him. “It’s about my fears and anxieties and having body dysmorphia,” she said. “I’ve always lived in this fat boy’s body and I wanted to not be there. I hide behind the things that represent me as an artist. It’s a very funny self-portrait, but I put a deeper insecurity about myself.” .

Wood is a prolific painter. He works from a large amount of original material kept in his archive and often returns to the same motifs. The artist does not paint from life, but from a selection of preparatory drawings and photographs. Chelsea first formed as a collage in 2009, before finally translating it to canvas for this exhibition. “I don’t really believe in writer’s block or painter’s block,” he opined. “I want to be in a state of continuous flow.” When looking beyond the recognizable forms of the work, his paintings can be read in a more abstract way. Her recurring motifs are a vehicle for explorations of line, pattern and form, and even when they offer a fragmented sense of perspective, her works retain a certain flatness.

View of the “Jonas Wood” installation. Artwork © Jonas Wood. Photo: Maris Hutchinson Courtesy of Gagosian.

The decisive paint lines in Wood’s pieces mimic and extend the original pencil lines of his drawings. Draw the largest shapes or objects on the canvas first, before filling them with smaller elements. “I’m not an action painter, I don’t roll up to a blank canvas and start painting this spontaneous idea,” he said. “I’m more like a builder, an architect or a contractor. I have to build the base and then accentuate the details on top. There is a lot of play in the painting. I’m extrapolating information from the source image, but then I’m marked by creation and expression on top of those bases I’ve already built.”

Sometimes the frame of the paintings comes to the fore. Japanese garden with temple he sees a multitude of competing patterns, lines and shapes. “Part of the intention was to paint a landscape, but also to force all these different kinds of patterns against each other,” he said. In 10 Pigeon Hill Roadthe conflicting lines of perspective convey how clumsy and fragmented human vision is. “I think the eye sees things from different perspectives. Our views are quite irregular. I like to lean into that and look for images that have that. These works are plastic, they’re not real. It’s an abstract experience and complicated”.

Jonas Wood, Miami Shade House (2024). © Jonas Wood. Photo: Marten Elder, courtesy of Gagosian.

In fact, the works complicate the distinctions of classical media. On close inspection, their markings reveal themselves to be painterly, but there is a graphic feel to their thick lines and irregular patterns when viewed from a distance. “My work has been compared to ‘South Park’ and ‘The Simpsons,'” he laughed. “I showed my kids some old video games from the 90s and they said, ‘Your paintings look like Nintendo.'” The animation is pretty flat. It’s made of stacked cells with limited information. Similarly, I’ve always wanted to paint very detailed things with limited tools—marks, lines, shapes—that’s all the way you approach certain aspects of painting is almost like X’s and O’s.”

Wall of Famethe only painting located at the entrance of the gallery, is a fusion of all his influences. He reflects on the close creative bonds he maintains with his children, recreating a wall in his home that is covered in art they have made with or for him. Among them is an expressive portrait of Woods; a recreation of his daughter’s drawing of an original Picasso; and a volcanic landscape painting. It is a celebration of both the figurative and the abstract; the personal and the formal.

“It’s kind of a self-portrait,” he said. “It has a still life, a landscape and a portrait. Everything is here: color, flatness, print. It is also for the viewer to understand how I collect things. It has everything I love about painting, but it’s also about my family, my relationship with my children. They loved it, they helped me work on it. I think it’s a strange painting, but it encompasses who I am.”

“Jonas Wood” is at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, until 23 November.