Let Us Grow

At first glance, the work of Samuel Levi Jones appears to be steeped in the tradition of constructivist or at least orthogonal abstract painting. A variety of coloured rectangular surfaces join and overlap to form a dynamic ensemble. And yet, these are not paintings, but groupings and collages of fragments of fabric that the artist has chosen and stitched together. These fragments come from a deconstruction, a pillage. Jones meticulously skins the bindings of outdated books which are supposed to assert their authority in their field: medicine, history, law. He also makes use of materials from other domains, such as American sport. For his first exhibition in Paris, entitled Let us Grow, the artist has produced a set of new works. In addition to using obsolete institutional publications (encyclopedias, law books, manuals of medicine, etc.), Jones has worked with vintage portfolios, boxes and bindings for French art prints, thus addressing a new European material relating to art history. Jones was born in 1978 in Marion, Indiana. He lives and works currently in Chicago and Indianapolis, USA and has exhibited widely in acclaimed American museums such as the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His exhibition Left of Center is on view now at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields from March 15 to September 1, 2019. Walkthrough with the artist on Saturday 18 May at 4 pm.