Hatsubon | 2016
Hatsubon is a memorial exhibition exploring the dynamic tension between tradition and performance through photographs and video, and include portraits of my father in the diaphanous space between life and death. The materiality of the exhibition suggests repeating dualities from the fleeting and the lasting– with floating silk landscapes and solid walnut framed images of the body and its urn, to the ephemeral and the corporeal–with suspended ribs of the skeleton boat and the heft of the hand-carved wooden oar. Relationships between and amongst object, place, and landscape come together in a pendulous state of longing and release.
Each iteration grows with additions of new pieces and video installation, each time taking on a presence of its own. Installations include Desai | Matta Gallery, San Francisco, CA, Kipp Gallery, Indiana, PA, Mendocino College Art Gallery, Ukiah, CA, Phebe Conley Art Gallery, Fresno, CA, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, WI, Northlight Gallery, Phoenix, AZ, Art League Houston, TX, Foto Relevance, Houston, TX
Throughout time communities and cultures have sent many of their young ones off to sea to find a better life on the other shore; at the other end of a lifetime, the ocean is home to our many rituals of death, both vehicle and destination for the final journey of our loved ones. With this body of work we travel to Jones’ unnamed coast—where the river meets the sea—to ritually set free the spirit and body of her father, who passed away just days before she arrived in San Francisco as a Visiting Artist and Curator-in-Residence.
Deirdre Visser, Curator of The Arts at CIIS