Wednesday, January 18, 2012

The Gathering: A solo exhibition of oil paintings by Robert Sparrow Jones


January 18 – February 11, 2012
Opening reception and artist talk Friday, January 27 at 4:30 PM


The Carlos Gallery in the Nabit Art Building at University of the South is pleased to present The Gathering, an exhibition of oil paintings by Georgia based artist Robert Sparrow Jones. In this new series, Jones explores a “Thoreauvian” attempt to coexist with nature. This fascination with the natural world, both delicate and enduring, forlornly strange and intimately known, is Jones’s response to, and escape from, the hyper-civilized, technology-saturated, globalized world.

Inspired by his upbringing in a small, valley town, and a passion for narrative, Jones’s paintings depict safe havens, such as tree houses and boats, amongst landscapes and waterscapes, reminding us that even in Mother Nature’s peril, meditative places exist and survive. In these timeless paintings, the new and old world overlap in a mixture of bucolic and cosmopolitan elements. Heightened color brings merges imagination with reality, and engages a perfect tension of psychology and emotional indifference. Ultimately, Jones wants his viewers to never forget the communal wild that we share with nature.

Robert Sparrow Jones is an artist whose work investigates the relationship between people and the natural world. Working in drawing, painting and print media, his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Some exhibitions include: The Paintings of Robert Sparrow Jones, Pratt Art Institute, Seattle, WA; Oscillating the Landscape, School 33, Baltimore, MD; The Birds of Robert Jones, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA; Athens Institute of Contemporary Art, Athens, GA; Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, WA, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, Mason Murer Gallery, Atlanta, GA; Cann Serrat, El Bruc Spain and The University of Hong Kong. He is also included in the Drawing Center Viewing Program.

Jones is an Assistant Professor of Painting at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia. He has previously taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Towson University in Baltimore, MD, the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, WA and the Museum of Glass, International Center for Contemporary Art in Tacoma, WA. He currently resides in Athens, Georgia.


Carlos Gallery
Nabit Art Building
105 Kennerly Road
University of the South
Sewanee, Tennessee
gallery hours:
Monday - Friday 8:00AM - 5:00PM,
Saturday and Sunday 1:00 - 5:00PM

2 comments:

John Zavacki said...

Mr. Jones, you are still an explorer, and a commando. Your explorations of nature are beautiful. One thing I've always tried to teach is that there is not line between man and nature, we are nature. Everything can be broken down into 12 (more or less, subject to change with improved instrumentation)particles and 4 forces, and those forces are the forces of nature. You've got it, my friend!!

Philip Koch said...

Rob, I've never actually thought of you as a commando before, but now that I think about it it sort of fits. This art business ain't for sissies.