Oliver Jones : Divine

5 Aug-20 Nov 2016

Overview

Oliver Jones is known for his photorealist chalk drawings, which consider how the media advertises, manipulates and exploits imagery of flesh. For his solo exhibition at The New Art Gallery Walsal, Oliver has created a new large-scale multi-panel work, Divine (2016), taking the studio of the tattoo artist as its subject. Emblematic of a religiou alter-piece, the triptych refers to Laocoon and his Sons, an ancient marble sculpture in the Vatican regarded as an icon of human agony and suffering. Through the work, Oliver prompts questions about the psychology of body modification and the role of extreme procedures in the attainment of physical perfection.