Oliver Jones

The face is my passion and drives the most fundamental objective of my work, which is to impel the viewer to rigorously and almost forensically examine its image. To implement this I include as little else in the portrait as possible to urge the viewer to concentrate solely upon the structure, colour, texture, balance and appearance of the facial field and the fragile nature of the flesh.

The most recent series of portraits compel the viewer to become intimate with faces that they would rarely become so personal with. The imposing scale of these portraits, force the viewer to look closely at the faces that some go out of their way to ignore or purposefully avoid. For these portraits I have been working in coloured chalk pastel on paper as their fragile properties reflect and enhance the fragile nature of the flesh but more importantly the application is comparable to the way we apply products, touch and handle our own faces. I have been inspired through work by Jose Luis Corella Garcia, Jason Brookes and Chuck Close but more recently been intrigued by work by Antony Micallef and Close’s later more painterly and gestural pieces.

The portraits purposefully contradict the picturesque and perfect visage that we are presented with daily and are motivated to improve and upkeep. The process includes selecting a single image from a sequence of photographs taken of the same subject, this can result in an undesirable or ambiguous outcome, however strives to eradicate the posed, unnatural and deceptive portrayal of the face that we have become receptive and even indifferent to. The media is a powerful ambassador for the portrayal of such an image, therefore I adopt similar techniques to re-advertise and exemplify a more common and natural image of the face.