DESCRIPTION

This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition Shio Kusaka & Jonas Wood at Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, Netherlands. It brings together works by both artists—a married couple who share both a home and a single studio—as a way to highlight the symbiosis and distinctive natures of their respective practices as potter and painter. The mutual influences and fascination with geometry and imperfection are evident in Wood’s paintings of Kusaka’s pots and objects, which in turn borrow patterns from his work such as elements of sport and everyday shapes. The bilingual (English/Dutch) publication features texts by Jurriaan Benschop and Suzanne Swarts.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Shio Kusaka was born in 1972 in Japan. She received a BFA in 2001 from the University of Washington, Seattle. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Tortoise, Venice, California (2005); Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago (2009); Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Ferndale, Michigan (2009); Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2010); greengrassi, London (2011, 2014); Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2012); Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland (2012); Jonas Wood and Shio Kusaka: Still Life with Pots, Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, New York (2013); Shio Kusaka, Jonas Wood, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago (2014); Jonas Wood and Shio Kusaka: Blackwelder, Gagosian, Hong Kong (2015); and Shio Kusaka and Jonas Wood, Karma, New York (2015). Kusaka’s work was included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial

In his boldly colored, graphic works—including paintings, drawings, and prints—Jonas Wood combines art historical references with images of the objects, interiors, and people that comprise the fabric of his life. Translating the three-dimensional world around him into flat color and line, he confounds expectations of scale and vantage point.

Born in Boston, Wood grew up surrounded by the art collection of his grandfather, featuring the work of artists such as Francis Bacon, Alexander Calder, Jim Dine, Robert Motherwell, Larry Rivers, and Andy Warhol. He received a BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, in 1999, majoring in psychology and minoring in studio art, then attended the University of Washington, Seattle, where he received an MFA in painting and drawing in 2002. During his student years, he explored making collage-like works based on montaged photographs that he took of himself, his friends, and their surroundings. These early photo-based paintings possess a darker and more volatile energy that is not as immediately evident in the work Wood is known for today.

Shortly after art school, Wood moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for the painter Laura Owens for a few years. Wood currently shares a studio with artist Shio Kusaka, his wife since 2002, and the pair often work in tandem, motifs migrating from Kusaka’s ceramic vessels to Wood’s paintings and back again. Common subjects include plants, portraits, and sports imagery, all of which come together in Wood’s lush interiors and intricate still lifes. He and Kusaka also incorporate imagery from their expansive art collection—including works by Alighiero Boetti, Michael Frimkess and Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Mark Grotjahn, and Ed Ruscha—as well as from their children’s storybooks and drawings.