Jonas Wood

Jonas Wood (b. 1977, Massachusetts) composes collaged portraits, still lifes, landscapes and interior scenes with bright colors and geometric patterns. His process involves photographing his subjects from multiple different angles and then filtering the imagery through sketches. This offers him the freedom to manipulate and rearrange perspective to create the surprising optical designs of his sought-after compositions. Wood says, “of all of the possible things I could paint, the thing that interests me is something that I can get close enough to in order to paint it.” The familiar scenes of everyday objects speak to the artist’s personal history, and his unique configurations invite audiences into his imaginatively interpreted world.

Wood holds a BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and an MFA in painting from the University of Washington. Today, his works are found in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), the Saatchi Gallery (London) and Museum of Modern Art (New York), among others. Wood and his wife, ceramicist Shio Kusaka, share a studio and often riff off of each other’s work, each cultivating an individual artistic practice that draws inspiration from the other. They currently live and work in Los Angeles, California.

related works

• Bridget Riley revolutionized Op art with her experimental ethos, activating the audience’s imagination with her illusory effects. View her work.
• In our sister gallery, form & concept, artist Heidi Brandow creates surreal landscapes from a mixed-media patchwork of patterns and shapes. View her work.