You could call [my work] a visual diary or even a personal history. I’m not going to paint something that doesn’t have anything to do with me. 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 honestly. – Jonas Wood

Jonas Wood is an American figurative painter, known for his boldly colored, blocky graphic artworks. In his stylized paintings, drawings and prints, he combines personal experiences with art historical references. Typically, he translates three-dimensional objects, such as plants, portraits, interiors and sports imagery, into flat color and line. Apart from still lifes, Jonas Wood is celebrated for his densely patterned depictions of ordinary environments, such as domestic interiors and landscapes. Inspired by artists including David Hockney, Henri Matisse and Alex Katz, Wood embraces bright palettes, playful geometries and two-dimensional forms. Working at every scale whilst maintaining active drawing and printmaking studies, his process also involves collage-based practices in which he breaks photographic imagery apart before reassembling it back together. Jonas Wood has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, the Netherlands; Lever House, New York (2014); and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2010). Jonas Wood was born in Boston in 1977, and currently lives in Los Angeles.

Jonas Wood, Kiki and Leopard