01 Oct 2019

Jonas Wood

Dallas Museum of Art

Reviewed by Tim McClure

Los Angeles-based Jonas Wood was recently honored at the TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art gala in Dallas, and the first solo museum exhibition of his work is now on view at the Dallas Museum of Art. Wood's recent paintings depict his surroundings, innocuous arrangements of anything, anybody, and anywhere. Fashionably playful designs and cheery, carefree colors carefully require nothing at all of the viewer.

Wood demonstrates a consistently competent workmanship, and he is a capable composer, particularly with his celebrated use of compression and pattern. Wood has said of his work, "...if you’re having a shitty day, maybe you could look at my painting and it would bring you some happiness." For instance, Night Bloom Still Life (2015) is done in the affable, slightly campy early-1960s illustration style that makes his paintings safe, friendly, air-conditioned retreats from the harsh, the unexpected, the untoward, delivering the viewer into the familiar, the easy, and the reassuring - a therapy of no surprises.