Rigorously structured to play with our perception of depth, Wood shows a profound indebtedness to Paul Cézanne’s deconstruction of pictorial space and the fracturing of forms that manifested in the Cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. He modifes the visual strategies of modern painting to refect a post-modern reality; one that is infltrated by fatness of the screen and a saturated visual culture fed by digital technologies. With further references to the consumer brand worship of Andy Warhol and the graphic interest in corporate logos expounded by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Wood condenses the abstract, the representational, the photographic and televised. In the absence of players, referees or audience, this surreal tennis court becomes a geometric game, revelling in asymmetry, where form and colour provide the dynamic back and forth energy otherwise expressed in the heat of a match. Having initially studied psychology before focusing on fne art, Wood’s unique interweaving of aesthetics and memory have earned his quotidian scenes a revered place in the history of contemporary painting. The artist gained notoriety in his early career through personal images of friends, family and interiors all based on frst hand perception and memories. Wood has remarked: ‘Of all 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 in conversation with Ana Vejzovic Sharp in: Dan Nadel, Ed., Jonas Wood: Interiors, Los Angeles 2012, p. 56.) As a crucial innovation in his practice, Wood’s sports images specifcally relate to visions and memories mediated through other media such as photography or television. Wood’s frst sport paintings used portraits of athletes that he sourced from the cards he collected as a child. Whilst familiar to some and surreal to others, the fattening efect of the blue court in Australian Open Two evokes space experienced as an image mediated through television. But despite presenting a scene rooted in a widely accessible record of reality, Wood’s askew framing of the composition remains both highly personal and coolly abstract.
Artist in his studio © Jonas Wood
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