• MFA in Fine Art

Self-replicating Self-portraits

Vanessa Jones

I am a figurative painter whose practice explores themes around the feminine as it relates to the ubiquitous iconography of the woman across time. My work conjures ancient and historical associations – primordial, archaic, medieval – throughout which the feminine is firmly rooted and immovable.

My paintings inhabit familiar yet unknown landscapes, dreamlike worlds based in reality, that are embedded in cultural symbolism. I work representationally, primarily in oil on canvas, using traditional techniques. I use self-portraiture as a vehicle for self-replication as it reinforces a ritualistic human need to see ourselves again and again. By representing symbols of the feminine through self-portraiture, I am able to see paradoxical ideas that exist within myself and the world at large. I can create an unreal believability. I can shapeshift through my paintings. I can co-exist in contradictory meanings and spaces.