Quiet Gray with Black Subtone #1 & 2 (Primary Title)
Jennie C. Jones, American, born 1968 (Artist)
“My work is in conversation with history.” —Jennie C. Jones
Jones is a Conceptual artist working at the intersection of painting and sound. For more than a decade, she has mined the idea of “listening as a Conceptual practice,” creating immersive environments using sound, sculpture, and works on paper, as well as bodies of paintings that she calls Acoustic Panel Paintings. Quiet Gray with Black Subtone #1 & 2 is an extension of what Jones termed her “triton” series that explored music tonality and color.
The work is a monochromatic diptych whose surfaces are covered by commercial acoustic panels. The subdued black and gray tones are upended by a striking pop of red, reminiscent of Barnet Newman’s “zips” that disrupted large planes of monochromatic color. For Jones, the bright red paint applied to the interior break or space between the painting’s two sections, as well as the upper edges, functions like sound when illuminated by light—each section provides an echo or a “call and response.”
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