ARTIST STATEMENT 

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I use abstraction and color to make sewn paintings and sculptures that explore the relationship between matrilineal connections, gender, place, time, and culture. In my process-driven practice, I employ techniques that are typically associated with craft to document the story of our current world, particularly the female narratives that are often neglected in history. By working with geometric compositions, I create a universal visual language to tell these stories, using textiles as a reference to issues of domesticity and women's work. My practice continues the story of geometric abstraction inherent to patchwork found in the Southern and Appalachian regions of the US, where many of my ancestors are from, and my work is steeped in the history of American quilt making and a vast group of unknown female makers. Conceptually, my work focuses on the use of readymade, common material and its elevation to high art; the power of color and shape; and is an authentic connection to the past, both personally and universally.

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I am drawn to fabric, to its familiarity, its inherent qualities of saturated color and textural luminosity, and its invitation to be touched. The fabric reflects, captures, and interacts with light in a way that no traditional paint can. My sewn paintings are created by cutting fabric with scissors, creating a composition through a process that is similar to assemblage and collage, joining the components together with a sewing machine, and pressing the fabric with an iron. Once the composition is complete, I stretch the fabric around a canvas or a wooden panel and staple it into place, allowing the final gestures to be made as a result of the fabric and its seams under tension. By manipulating fabric and pulling it taut, seam lines shift and stretch, revealing their final placement only once the work is finished. 

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My use of color is influenced by the work of Josef Albers and his Interaction of Color. As I work with readymade material, and commercially available fabric, I explore color relationships and am particularly drawn to bright, saturated palettes. My black and white works are a response to the time I spent in Dakar, Senegal, on the western coast of Africa, during my time as an artist-in-residence at Black Rock Senegal, founded by Kehinde Wiley, in 2019. That experience has had a profound impact on me, as well as my practice, and my current body of work investigates the influence of traditional African patchwork on American patchwork from the South, and how these shared traditions connect us with our ancestors. 

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The subject of my work is unequivocally feminist: I specifically choose to work with fabric rather than paint, in reference and reverence to the fact that fiber arts were often the only type of art that women were encouraged to practice for many years throughout history. I have also been focusing on the form of the triangle in many of my recent works. The triangle is the strongest shape, physically speaking, but also symbolically. They often represent the female form, and I use them in my work to symbolize the strength of my personal matrilineal line, as well as the universal strength of women.

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ARTIST BIO

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Heather Jones is an artist who uses abstraction and color to comment on matrilineal connections, the historical and socio-political relationship between women and textiles, and explores the relationship between gender, place, time, and culture in her work. Her sewn paintings and sculptures continue the story of geometric abstraction, and she is influenced by artists including Josef and Anni Albers, Mark Rothko, Ellsworth Kelly, and Carmen Herrera, but also equally by a vast group of unknown female makers from the Southern and Appalachian regions of the United States and their patchwork quilting. The subject of her work is unequivocally feminist: she chooses to work with fabric rather than paint, in reference and reverence to the fact that fiber arts were often the only type of art that women were encouraged to practice for many years throughout history. Conceptually, her work focuses on the use of readymade, common material and its elevation to high art; the power of color and shape; and is an authentic connection to the past, both personally and universally. She documents the story of our current world, particularly female narratives that are often neglected in history. By working within the realm of geometric compositions, Jones creates a universal visual language to tell these stories, using textiles as a reference to issues of domesticity and women’s work. 

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Jones is represented by Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, Ohio; the George Gallery, Charleston, South Carolina; Moremen Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky; and has work available through the  David Richard Gallery, New York, NY. She was selected as an artist-in-residence for Kehinde Wiley’s inaugural class at Black Rock Senegal and worked there in October 2019. Jones’s solo exhibition, Storytellers, opened in February 2022 at the Contemporary Dayton (Ohio), one of three concurrent solo exhibitions featuring the work of Jones, Odili Donald Odita, and Jeffrey Gibson. She also had her first solo exhibit in New York City at David Richard Gallery which opened in February 2022. Jones is currently an artist-in-residence at Silver Art Projects in New York City.

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Her work has been exhibited widely at national and international venues including the Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, OH (solo); Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati, OH (solo); Contemporary Art Matters, Columbus, OH (solo); Art on Paper, New York, NY; Aqua Art Miami, Miami, FL; Marta Hewett Gallery, Cincinnati, OH; Iowa Quilt Museum, Winterset, IA; New England Quilt Museum, Lowell, MA; Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY; the University of California, Berkley, CA; Dakar Biennale, Dakar, Senegal; Boecker Contemporary, Heidelberg, Germany; drj- dr. julius | ap, Berlin, Germany; Five Walls, Melbourne, Australia; and M17 Contemporary Art Center, Kiev, Ukraine. Jones’ first book, Quilt Local: Finding Inspiration in the Everyday, was released in October 2015 by STC Craft, an imprint of Abrams, New York.

A native Cincinnatian, Jones studied art history at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning, earning both a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts (ABT). She currently lives outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, on a small farm with her husband and two children.