Otis Jones’s three-dimensional paintings celebrate the physical properties of his medium and the relationship between form, color, and composition. Jones earned his MFA from the University of Oklahoma in 1972 and received a Visual Artists Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1982. He is based in Dallas, Texas, and has widely exhibited in his home state and beyond. To create his minimalist paintings, Jones fastens his canvases to irregularly shaped wooden frames, leaving both the thick plywood structures and staples exposed. He then applies and sands away several coats of paint, leaving behind textured surfaces. Though they appear largely monochrome, his paintings get their colors through various layered hues; Jones leaves small circles or rectangles of contrasting color on their surfaces, alluding to this process of addition and excavation. 

Otis Jones

Untitled, 1980

Paint on Wood

43.5" x 4" x 1.5"