Penelope Jones

My most recent work fully embraces my love of architecture and structure, but with a definite shift towards unstable angularity and strong diagonal formations.

One source for this shift is a postcard I’ve had pinned up in my studio for over a decade of a painting titled Giant Snowball, painted by Shoren’in Sonjun Shinno in the ukiyo-e (“floating worlds”) style of 17th-century Japan. I am entranced with the utter beauty of this genre: the precise lines, the delicate colors, the contrast of angular and curved shapes, the aerial perspectives of looking down into domestic worlds, and the graphic quality of the angled grids representing screened walls within architectural structures.

My studio practice involves drawing, painting, and collaging - at times combined or as separate processes. I make collages primarily from recycling my own paintings on paper – the ones that don’t work. With paint my process comprises layering, scraping, erasing, and sanding. The resulting surfaces, smooth like polished tiles and satisfying to touch, become the visual records of many decisions falling into place.

~ Penelope Jones

Penelope Jones was born and raised in Ithaca, NY. She received a BFA from Maine College of Art (formerly Portland School of Art), and an MFA (in painting) from Cornell University. After 5 years of living, working, and exhibiting in Boston, she returned to Portland, Maine, where she currently resides and exhibits her work. She began teaching in 1992; she has taught painting, drawing and design at Cornell University, University of Southern Maine, Maine College of Art, Bowdoin College, and Bates College.

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