OTIS JONES: RECENT WORK
Nino Mier Gallery is pleased to present Recent Work, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Otis Jones.
May 15 – June 14, 2025
Rooted in a tactile and reductive language, Jones’ thicky built paintings are handmade from start to finish. Linen is stretched over custom supports, fixed in place with rows of exposed staples. Imperfections in the fabrication process are embraced, forming the underlying traces of the patina that will eventually develop as the art object matures. Shades of blue, cream, charcoal, or red-oxide acrylic is repeatedly scraped, painted, and pared down, giving way to monochromatic surfaces that feel worn and carry an ethos of utility and repair.
The presented works take the shape of organic forms, their multi-coloured nuclei recalling animal and plant cells arrested mid-meiosis. The unpainted edges of the layered wooden supports remain exposed as a testament to the object’s construction. Lamination drips seep through the seams as the raw, uneven fringes of the linen appear light and airy despite the battle of tension taking place across its surface. Of course, Jones’ paintings resist literal interpretation, asking to be experienced viscerally and meditatively as well as optically. As Jones breaks away from the traditional flat format of painting, his works extend into real space, drawing attention to their edges, shapes, and physical presence on the wall.
Even Jones’ titles refrain from divulging too much about the work in question, focusing instead on what can be immediately perceived within the frame. In Red Oxide with Black and White Circles, an expansive field of pale red oxide covers its oblong wooden support, a small circle of black and a slightly larger circle of white hug the upper border of the canvas, like hydrophobic bubbles of oil. The layers of laminated wood are grouped into two distinct slabs, separated by several wooden blocks along its perimeter.
Jones’ practice draws from a broad lineage of post-minimalism and process-based abstraction. Like Eva Hesse and Ron Gorchov, he maintains a reverence for form while eschewing the industrial finish associated with earlier minimalists. The paintings in Recent Work feel grounded, handmade, and bodily – and aesthetic shaped as much by farm tools and worn boots as by canvas tradition. There’s a quiet defiance in his approach: a belief that clarity and imperfection can coexist, and that painting maintains the capacity to hold time, labour, and intimacy in its surface.