Sarah Jones (artist)


Sarah Jones in London, United Kingdom, is a visual artist working primarily in the realm of photography. Her practice is deeply rooted in art history, and she draws influence from topics such as Psychoanalysis, adolescence, and the Victorian period. She gained international recognition in the mid 1990s coinciding with the completion of her MA in Fine Art at Goldsmith's College in London in 1996.

Career and early life

Jones' career gained recognition after her completion of her MA at Goldsmith's College in 1996. She went on to be involved in many notable exhibitions, including the 3rd International Tokyo Photo Bienalle, presented at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Another Girl, Another Planet curated by Gregory Crewdson and involving 12 other contemporary and notable photographers.

''Another Girl, Another Planet''

Jones was also involved in the 1999 show Another Girl, Another Planet along with 9 other female artists, curated by Gregory Crewdson and Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn at the Van Doren Gallery in New York, NYC. Other artists involved in the show included Anna Gaskell, Katy Grannan, Malerie Marder, Justine Kurland and more. The show consisted primarily of topics surrounding adolescence and womanhood. The show had mixed reviews, many critics, such as Katy Seigel, criticized the pornographic and sexualized elements in the show, referring in particular to photos of adolescent girls. Seigel went on to publish an article about the photographers involved in the show titling it "Dial P for Panties: Narrative Photography in the 1990s " and delivered some harsh reviews labelling the group of female artists the 'Panty Photographers'.
Another review from the New York Times, published in 1999, describes the show as dreamy and erotically charged, "Justine Kurland's wide-screen color pictures of gangs of unsupervised girls at play in the woods, Katy Grannan's portraits of teen-agers posed in their underwear in their bedrooms, Sarah Jones's big Pre-Raphaelite-esque image of pensive twins in a backyard garden or Malerie Marder's vision of a girl in a bikini floating on a pool raft, you feel the mood of dreamy, erotically charged vagrancy by which the photographers themselves seem to be so fruitfully possessed."

Present day

Jones is Reader and Senior Tutor in Photography at the Royal College of Art in London.
Jones's work has been included in numerous exhibitions, nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions include: Museum Folkwang, Essen; Museum Reina Sofia, Madrid; Le Consortium, Dijon; Huis Marseille, Amsterdam; Maureen Paley, London and Anton Kern Gallery, New York. Group exhibitions include; Tate Britain; Tate Liverpool; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden; Orange County Museum, Los Angeles, and Norton Museum of Art, Florida. Her work is represented in both public and private collections nationally and internationally.

Influences

Jones enjoys the medium of photography for its capability to scrutinize something, freezing a moment to look more closely at it. "Perhaps photography allows us to daydream; reverie is where time seems to stretch out." Jones states in an interview with A.M. Homes for Frieze magazine. She is also heavily influenced by psychoanalysis and the theories of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and other well known psychological theorists. These ideas of psychoanalysis were explored in her series of photos of psychoanalysts couches She wanted to explore the spaces that allowed for people to re-live experiences and loosen the grip that their past has on them. Through talking with the head of the British Institute of Psychoanalysis, she learned that patients often acted as if there were a third party in the session, this was interesting to her in the sense of the camera being the third presence. Creating the idea of an audience.
Jones' images are narrative in nature, and she is interested in how a narrative is constructed. She also believes that photography leaves a space for the viewer to bring a unique narrative and experience to an image. She develops her narratives using various visual codes that allude to her many different references that she makes throughout her body of work. Some of these codes include her use of reference to art history, and her fetishization of hair. Her photograph "Horse" from 2010 has been referenced to Muybridge's black horse, and her photographs of roses are said to be compared to Karl Blossfeldt's botanical studies.
Her art historical references are apparent in her choice of colors within her photos. She has a strong presence of blue, to indicate the Sublime, or distance in Renaissance painting. As well as strong notes of red in her photos such as in "Living Room ]". Her Flower series is heavily influenced by the gothic era, pulling inspiration from the aesthetics of that time to create 'Victorian rose gardens' and rich mysterious colors and darkness.
She is also heavily influenced by the Victorian cultural obsession with photographing hair, and how hair can act as an allegory to location and figure, or in her words hair can represent "nature gone slightly mad". Hair reminds her of the roses she photographs, "visceral, spindly and beautiful, in bloom but slightly diseased".

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

DateExhibitions
2014Maureen Paley, London, UK.
Anton Kern Gallery, New York, USA

Group exhibitions

DateExhibitions
2015The Collective, The House of St Barnabas, London, UK
Paradis perdu, FRAC – Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque, France
Contemporary Photography from North West Europe. Chapter I, Fondazione Fotografie Modena, Modena, Italy
Double Take: Photography and the Garden, Hestercombe Gallery, Somerset
Scenery, 254 Bethnal Green Road, London, UK.
2014The Marseillaise / fifteen years of collecting, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Your Tongue In My Mouth, Stanley Picker Gallery, London
2013Collective Apparitions, Contemporary Art Space, La Rochelle, France.
The First 15, Photography from the Meredith S. Moody Residency at Yaddo, The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art
Gallery at Skidmore College, NY, USA.
Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present, National Gallery, London, UK, touring to CaixaForum Barcelona,
and CaixaForum Madrid,.
2012Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present, National Gallery, London,.
Family Matters: The Family in British Art, Art Gallery, Millennium Galleries, Sheffield, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, Tate Britain, London
Der Mensch und Seine Objekte, Museum Folkwang, Essen.
Observers: Photographers of the British scene from 1930s to now, Galeria de Arte do Sesi, Avenida Paulista, São Paulo.
Focal Points: Art and Photography, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK.
Melancholia, Villa Klinger, Leipzig.
2011Nothing In The World But Youth, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK.
Family Matters: The Family in British Art, Norwich Castle Museum, Norwich, UK.
Signs of a struggle: Photography in the Wake of Postmodernism, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK.
A Sense of Perspective, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
Herein! Interieurs in der DZ Bank Kunstsammlung, DZ Bank, Frankfurt, Germany. Heroines, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza &
Fondacion Caja, Madrid, Spain,.
Stripped, Nottingham Castle Museum, UK.
Dutch Still Life, Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts, USA,.
2010Peeping Tom, Kunsthal, Amersfoort, the Netherlands
Streetlife & Homestories Fotografien aus der Sammling Goetz, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich
Peeping Tom,, Vegas Gallery, London.
The Bart's Hospital Commission/Vital Arts, London.
Photographs, Musee Nicephone Niepce, Musee de la Photographie, Chalon sur Saône.
2009The Casini Cruise, Ardi Poels Projects, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Flower Power, Villa Giulia – CRAA, Verbania, Italy.
Passing Thoughts and Making Plans, curated by Catherine Yass, Jerwood Space, London, UK.
2008Friends and Family, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, USA.
Interior/ Exterior: Living in Art, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany.
Intim/Ita, Museum Kampa, Prague.
Within: New Photographic Portraits, Bloomberg Space, London, UK.
Street & Studio: An Urban History of Photography, Tate Modern, London; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany.
The Society of London Ladies, dispari&dispari project, Reggio nell’Emilia, Italy.
2007Garden Eden, The Garden in Art Since 1900, Kunsthalle in Emden, Emden, Germany,.
7th Internationale Foto Triennale Esslingen, Galerien der Stadt Esslingen, Esslingen am Neckar, Germany,.
Something That I'll Never Really See, Contemporary Photography from the V&A, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich;
Nottingham Castle, Nottingham.
Northern Lights: Reflecting with Images, Galleria Civica di Modena, Modena.
Beautiful People, CRAC Alsace, Altkirch.
2006Implosion, Anton Kern Gallery, New York.
XX – Encontros de Fotografia, Coimbra Visual Arts Centre, Portugal.
La Collection Photographique du Frac des Pays de La Loire, Galerie Le Lieu, Lorient.
Portrait – 1960 to today, by Die Photographische / SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Art Cologne.
Simon & Sarah, Platform, London.
2005Pour de Vrai, Musee des Beux-Arts, Nancy.
Motor Blues – The donation autowerke given by BMW financial services to the museum der bildenden Kunste Leipzig,
Museum der bildenden Kunste Leipzig,.
Attentes, Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain, Luxembourg,.
New Photography, Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach, Florida.
The wonderful fund collection, touring exhibition: Le Musee de Marakech, ; Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; and others,.
2004Stranger Than Fiction, Abersytwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth.
Take Five ! Huis Marseille turns five, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam,.
Art of the Garden, touring exhibition: Tate Britain, London, ; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester,,.
Biennale, Museum of New Art, Pontiac.
Just love me, Fries Museum, Leuwaarden,.
2003A bigger splash – British art from Tate – 1960 – 2003, touring exhibition: Pavihao lucas Nogueira Garcez – Oca Parqueibirapuera;
Sao Paul &
Instituto Tomie Ohtake,.
Double Exposure, ING-bank, Kortrijk,.
Virtual Eye, Norwich Castle Museum, Norwich,.
Girls’ Night Out, touring exhibition: Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach ; Addison Gallery of American Art,
Andover,
; Contemporary Art Museum, St Louis ; Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, Texas,,.
Painting Pictures, Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg,.
Photography, Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens.
Child In Time: Views of contemporary artists on youth and adolescence, Gemeentemuseum Helmond.
2002Die Wohltat der Kunst: Post\Feministische Positionen der 90er Jahre aus der Sammlung Goetz, touring exhibition:
Sammlung Goetz, Munich; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden,.
Telling Tales: Narrative Impulses in Recent Art, Tate Liverpool, England.
2001Making your dreams come true – Young British photography, Representing Britain, Tate Britain.
I LOVE NY, Anton Kern Gallery, New York.
No World Without You – Reflections of Identity in New British Art, Herzliya Museum of Art, Tel Aviv,.
2000Les trahisons du modèle, Galerie Nei Liicht, Dudelange Luxembourg.
Intersection I: intimate/anonymous, Espace d’art Contemporain HEC, Jouy-en-Josas, France.
docudrama, Bury St. Edmunds Art Gallery, Bury St. Edmunds.
Pause/Pose, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris.
Wooden Heart, AVCO, London.
Quotidiana, Castello di Rivoli, Turin.
1999Another Girl Another Planet, Lawrence Rubin Greenberg Van Doren Fine Art, New York,.
3rd International Tokyo Photo Bienalle, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan.
Dreamlands, Portfolio Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland,.
1998F Comme Photographie, Centre d’Art Contemporain
Kunsthalle, Fribourg, Switzerland.
dijon/le consortium.coll, tout contre l’art contemporain, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Shot Without Reason, Bloom Gallery, Amsterdam.
Sorted, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
Made in London, Musea de Electricidade, Lisbon,.
The Erotic Sublime, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg.
The new neurotic realism, The Saatchi Gallery, London,.
Family Credit, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh.
1997Portrait, Maureen Paley Interim Art, London.
Dramatically Different, Galeries du Magasin,
Centre National d’art Contemporain de Grenoble, France,.
Strange Days, Galleria Gian Ferrari Arte Contemporanea, Milan,.
On the Bright Side of Life – Contemporary British Photography, Neue Gesselschaft für bildende Kunst e.V., Berlin,.
Bill Henson, Sarah Jones, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia Galerie Gebauer, Berlin.
Jennifer Bornstein, Jenny Cage, Anna Gaskell, Dana Hoey, Sarah Jones,
Valérie Jouve, Gillian Wearing, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris.
Moulin Saint-James, Printemps de Cahors, Cahors.
1996A.C.E !, touring exhibition: Arts Council Collection, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle;
Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston; Oldham Art Gallery;
Hayward Gallery, London.
New Contemporaries, touring exhibition: Tate Gallery, Liverpool; Camden Arts Centre, London.
1995Sick, 152c Brick Lane, London.
Nobby Stiles, Vandy Street, London.
1994Foto 2, 152c Brick Lane, London.
Dad, Gasworks Gallery, London.
1991Slow Horses, St. James’, London.
1990Next Phase, Tobacco Dock, London.
1989Constructed Imagery, Plovdiv Gallery, Bulgaria.
1988Untitled Gallery, Sheffield.
The Photographers Gallery, London.

Awards