The purpose of Analytics of a Painting is to give the collector an insight and backstory for select paintings.

Because so much of the art work requires a deeper understanding of what each piece represents, we felt it necessary to provide this guide.

This guide will be featuring various paintings from the collection and updated periodically.

Painting Analytics #9

Another non-conventional approach to a style I proudly deem my own Receptive Abstract Patternism™. For those who love to explore relationships between shapes, juxtapositions and quirky forms. Here’s a painting to immerse in. With a careful eye you will find two gold brush strokes that did not receive the obligatory orange dot. I may add them or leave the painting untouched. Sometimes it’s like asking if someone read a document you’re wrote and they say “Oh Yes..it was very good.” While all along you secretly know you deliberately placed verbal traps that are completely out of context. I didn’t do so in this painting. Missing the two squares was purely a result of being visually mesmerized and deep within my own thoughts. When I create these painting viewers often say they’re all so different but yet have a common theme. I pride myself on approaching each new work without any preconceived notion as to what will happen. Lucky mistakes occur, which ultimately pull together the work.

Paintings Analytics #8

Title: Dialogue with Pollock

Medium: oil on canvas

I’m not alone when it comes to wondering what Jackson Pollock’s artwork would have morphed into had he not died. His work was seminal and certainly he established a style that was arguable his and his alone. The style I affectionately call Receptive Abstract Patternism™ is genuine, authentic and all my own. I am proud to a fault when I say I am not stimulated by what I see outside of my own inner thoughts.

In this painting I decided to be a little bit Picasso-esque and channel a bit of dripping from Jackson Pollock’s original thinking.

This piece is clearly filled with organization, but departs with blues and the greens. The homogenization takes place with the splattering of the blue, which crosses all boundaries but ties everything together.

The painting has lots of texture, starting with the flesh tone and then the various layers of thicker paint. The four borders corral the composition giving the impression of containment for viewer. The overall square is slightly askew making it look organic and less predictable.

Painting Analytics #7

Thick oil paint creates pottery on canvas. Sometimes what you do with leftover paint becomes an exciting use of my signature Receptive Abstract Patternism™. A thick, earthen, clay colored tone becomes the medium for this sgraffito work of art. The different shapes are reminiscent of brush strokes that are often found in my work. So how did this painting end up with a name that reflects the Zulu warriors of Southern Africa? As I sgraffitoed the shapes I started to think of shields and spears. Maybe the ghost of Shaka popped out from an old movie or documentary that I had seen many years ago. I certainly do not agree with his technique of ruling. I personally really like the earthiness almost as if this painting came out of an ancient kiln baked and hardened reflecting the peaks and valleys of formed and dried pottery. I deliberately left the edges mis-shaped open and not getting cozy with the canvas border. The painting resides in our family room over our curio & oddities cabinet. Seems like a perfect fit, blends nicely with our eclectic collection.  Someday the right buyer will come along and we’ll have to bid farewell, but we will retain a photograph as a keepsake.

Painting Analytics #6

I don’t know if we will ever sell this painting. It has a prominent position in our guest bedroom. Rosa Mystica has been one of our most popular posters and I am told people trim it out of the poster borders, mat it and frame it. I suspect it looks pretty nice, especially the quality of these posters is beyond reproach. The painting itself has some interesting characteristics There is three layers of color. The most prominent is the royal purple with a scatter layer of white and brown. The design was carved in “sgraffito with a bent Red Devil putty knife that I picked up at Home Depot. Handy tool especially because it helps enhance my vision of the humble square or rectangle. The brown reveals itself in strategic locations. I think the white gives the painting depth. Some have told me that it’s very meditative. It certainly has good Feng Shui for our guests always tell us that they had a wonderful sleep looking across the bed at this painting prior to nodding off. Probably not a painting to put in front of your home office desk, but then again maybe it will help calm your day and ensure future success.

Painting Analytics # 5 

Recently a patron commented, “Your work is intensely original.

This painting entitled – Red Tree Between Two Rivers – could easily boast a best originality award.

Painting Analytics #4

Title: Trestle

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Size: (h w d): 48.0 x 36.0 x 1.5 in

The Trestle painting has been a personal favorite for quite some time. In fact it was hanging in our production office for probably about a year, and has now achieved totally dry status. The medium is oil on canvas and oil based silver paint. The background is entirely silver and then the various shapes were added, starting with the three sided frame of black and random strokes of Interference Gold. From there on the composition came together. I added the smaller pink and blue squares to give it dimension, along with the silver stripes inside the white, which took on a life of its own and introduced the feeling of snow and ice. So this is definitely a winter scene.

Like virtually all of my paintings it was not given a name until it was completed. The black frame-like surround gave us the impression of a railroad bridge. The black and metallic colors give it a gritty but yet firm construction look. If you have the opportunity to look at mid-century train bridge you’ll discover they are constructed of steel with an Erector Set quality. At one point I considered entitling this painting Erector Set. Certainly my most favorite toy as I was growing up. I believe there’s still some influences of the Erector Set in my work because of the patterns and how they are constructed. But the title “Trestle” won out and it seems to resonate well.

Painting Analytics #3

It’s not uncommon for me to start a painting by building the background and letting it dry. In the painting entitled Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe I started with a gray and mixed in other colors to give it dimension. You’ll see the blue from the sky and the green of the foliage. Then I built the large square in the painting after the background was dry. It started to have the appearance of a picnic blanket, which prompted me to think of Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. Many artists have created their own interpretation of this infamous work. Even Picasso gave it a shot and I believe he knocked off other elements and incorporated them in future paintings. Once I established the picnic blanket I added the characters of the scene. They’re represented by the perimeter squares and the shapes somewhat mimic their postures. The squares have a square inserted in each to create some dimension. Once the scene was established I incorporated more elements of my Receptive Abstract Patternism™ style. Adding randomly but methodically placed marks and squares. When these appear over the dark background colors it creates an interesting dimension and makes for an overall interesting interpretation of a classic.

I invite you to Google Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe and compare the original to all of the various interpretations. Quite often my piece comes up. Thank you Google 🙂

Painting Analytics #2

Not to many years ago, it was common to find copies matching portraits of Pinkie by Thomas Lawrence and Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough in every suburban middle class home.

I remembered these two paintings in my own home while I was growing up and to this day I admire the originals hanging in the Huntington Library in California.

When I started this painting I primarily created the background with grey oil paint and introduced blue with a palette knife and brushed it in, so the edges were feathered and soft, while the paint was still wet I added the pinkish border, again feathering. Once the painting dried, I started to add the various elements. As you can see, there are squares, outlined squares and with pink and gray rectangles mixed throughout. Because of the various shades of the background, it give the painting some dimension and if you see the painting in person it has tremendous presence with a lot of depth and a wonderful opportunity for the “eye of the mind” to explore. While the painting was drying we kept looking at it wondering how should it be titled. The prevalence of the pink and blue made me think of the Pinkie and Blue Boy paintings, so as it, and often is the way my paintings are named. I posted a tweet on this painting referring the original Pinkie & Blue Boy and the Huntington Library and commented that this work is light years away from the original. To my surprise, they responded with a very kind and respectful tweet.

This painting incorporates Receptive Abstract Patternism™ in this extremely Non-Objective look at the two classics melded together affectionately in one vision.

Painting Analytics #1 

Title: Central Park New York City
Medium: oil on canvas
Size (H x W x D): 30.0 x 40.0 in

World famous Central Park in New York has been captured photographically and painted for decades. Adding yet another interpretation Rod Jones has created what appears to be a minimalistic aerial view. The elements are open to the imagination and interpretation of the viewer.

“When I originally started this painting, like most of my work, I had no real idea of where it was headed. At one point when the outer blue color was laid down and I left open spaces where the orange-red color is seen, I thought this looked like an animal skin stretched for drying, which led me to also think about how Native American Indians used to paint on these stretched skins. As I laid in the green, mauve, yellow and blue…the idea of the stretched animal skin faded. I wanted to split up the center instead of having another predictable color, I split it into the blue and the off-white. At that point, the blue looked like a lake surrounded by various topographies. The perimeter rectangles seemed like buildings…with not too much imagination I envisioned Central Park…so the painting had its name. The squares around the green are buildings that surround the park. The initial blue/grey color is grayness of the city. The green refreshing grass, the mauve represents various forms of plant life. The orange represents seasonal changes. The blue of course, is the lake. The three black squares represents commerce within the park, over a field of white, which gives a sense of purity and innocence. It’s not always easy to understand why a painting ends up looking the way it does. I hope this brief explanation gives some insight.”

Rod Jones