Ryan Jones: Paintings at Upcoming Exhibition in St. Helena

Caldwell Snyder in St. Helena is pleased to announce the new exhibition of recent paintings for Ryan Jones, and reception with the artist, Sunday Dec. 14, 3-5pm, featuring live jazz, wine, and bites by Brannan’s Grill.

Exhibition on view through January 15, 2015.

Ryan Jones’s arresting paintings immerse us in stories featuring beautiful women and mysterious, luxurious settings—secluded swimming pools, shadowy rooms with ornate furniture—images infused with fantasy and a hint of noir.

Rather than frame faces as in ordinary portraiture, Jones gives us tantalizing glimpses of his subjects, directing our focus toward finer nuances of a scene. As he has noted, his work is a unique “fusion of the real and surreal.”

In his latest body of work, Jones intensifies his focus on subtle gestures, postures, and movements. Juxtaposed in and around bold geometric shapes, the emotional power of his figures seems magnified.

His compositions force us to see glorious bits of life through a restricted lens, as if we’re watching through a keyhole, our imaginations filling with possible storylines, speculating about what has happened, what is about to happen, and what is happening just beyond the borders of the frame.

Jones studied fine art at Stanford University and lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Fittingly, given his keen interest in narrative and framing, he has worked as a matte painting supervisor at Lucasfilm, and his paintings have been featured in motion pictures as well as on the covers of Entertainment Weekly, Wired Magazine, Cinefax, Post, and Kult Magazine.

Jones’s work has been showcased in galleries in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Singapore, and has been purchased by high-profile collectors in the film and tech industries.