The Work of Jonas Wood at the Norton Museum

The work of Jonas Wood (b. 1977) is currently on exhibit in a group show at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach and at the Miles McEnery Gallery in New York.

 

For the last ten years Wood’s paintings and prints have been the the focus of many solo and group exhibits.

 

 

He has collaborated with exclusive design houses like Louis Vuitton and, because of his interest in the game of poker, has designed jackets and hats for Triton Poker.

In a recent interview, Wood said that he had thought about getting a PhD in psychology before concentrating on his art. “I was thinking I was going to be a doctor until I actually gave into the idea of working on art all the time.” he said, “I worked at a psychiatric facility where they did these functional MRIs of the brain. I studied abroad and that’s where I took my first art history class, and then I wanted to learn how to paint. It’s not a surprise to anybody that I’m an artist, except for me. I was always juggling the idea of not being all in because I was already doing something else.”

Besides working in his studio, Wood has become part of a group of art-world poker players. “The coolest thing about poker is that it’s so social and you’re talking to other artists, but you’re not in the studio chopping it up about art that way.” he said. “ It brought different generations together, and we started the World Series of Art Poker in 2021 where we’re like, “Let’s get more people from the art world to play poker with this group of people we already had going.” 

 

Wood lives and works in Los Angeles with his artist wife, Shio Kusaka, whose ceramic pots and figures are often the subject of his works. The couple has two children. Wood said that being a father has  meant adjusting the time and focus of his artistic practice, “It took me a while to be like, “I still need to be by myself a lot.” I had one assistant, and then I had two assistants, and then I had somebody helping me run the studio, and then I had kids. Talking to other dads is dope because it’s so crazy you’re at one point you’re totally free, married and staying up late and working in our studios at all hours.”

 

Strike Fast, Dance Lightly: Artists on Boxing at the Norton Museum will be on exhibit through March 9, 2025. Overserved will be on exhibit at the Miles McEnery Gallery through July 3, 2024.

 

The works of Jonas Wood are part of the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Met, MoMA, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and many other fine institutions.

 

---

 

May 14, 2024