Overview
Recognised as one of the most distinct voices in contemporary self-portraiture, Lucy Jones’ raw and revealing self-portrayals are both personal and politically charged. Addressing themes of femininity, fragility, aging and disability in her work, she challenges societal perceptions of difference while looking inwards into her own internal dialogues.
Some of these paintings are quite confrontational because I want people to confront not just me, but I’m commenting on disability, I’m also commenting on unseen disability like dyslexia or depression. I quite often write on them using a mirror image of the writing, so it makes it quite difficult for people to read it, because I want to make it awkward for the viewer to understand this painting completely.
Shadows are prominent in her self-portraits, as seen in How did you get on this canvas? (2013) and Who is the artist round here (2012), typically mirroring the pose and placed alongside a more ‘realist’ depiction of Jones. The silhouettes are a physical embodiment of our hidden emotions, fears, premonitions and self-consciousness interacting with the wider world. In Jungian psychology, the shadow is representative of the unconscious psyche, the repressed desires and impulses. The deeply coloured shadow self is also representative of the unwavering creativity, the indescribable and mysterious aspects of ourselves.
-Philip Vann, ‘Absolutely Lucy Jones’: Transformative Rhythms and Vibrant Colourism in her Landscape and Inscape Paintings, Awkward Beauty, 2018
Within this powerful self-portrait, Lucy Jones, looking straight at us, takes stock of the years between being three years old and being seventy, as if there is an invisible umbilical cord of time.
Lucy Jones
Lucy at 70, and It Started so Well!, 2025
Oil on canvas
130 x 110 cm
51 1/8 x 43 1/4 in
51 1/8 x 43 1/4 in
Awkward Beauty
Lucy Jones
Described by art critic Jackie Wullschlager as 'the most exciting English colourist of her generation,'' British artist Lucy Jones explores exterior landscapes and interior worlds with a clear and brutally frank vision....
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