Fay Jones and the language of art

Art preview

Fay Jones' show, "Caprices," opens today at Grover/Thurston gallery in Pioneer Square and runs through Dec. 15. 206-223-0816.

"Fay Jones," with text by Seattle Times visual art critic Sheila Farr, will be released in December through the University of Washington Press.

Anyone even mildly interested in the Northwest art scene probably knows Fay Jones' work. It graces the walls of local establishments from restaurants to hospitals, the Metro bus tunnel to the Seattle Art Museum - not to mention countless private homes here and around the country.

Jones began showing in Seattle in 1970, and since then her boldly composed, often large-scale, figurative paintings have attracted a swelling number of fans. Each of her exhibits is eagerly awaited, and none more so than the one tonight at Grover/Thurston Gallery in Pioneer Square. The new paintings are unlike anything she has done before.

The show consists of 81 small watercolors - a medium Jones doesn't normally use - that are literal copies of "Los Caprichos," a series of etchings by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746-1828). Goya made the images as satirical commentaries on the social and political events of his time.

Jones says she began without any intention of copying the series. A few of the images she found "perfect," so she copied one, and then found she couldn't stop. "I started because there were things I was very close to. I continued because I became fascinated by what he did."

"Goya was a society painter until he turned deaf . . . and his work got darker and darker. Some may appear very light - a lot are very funny - basically human behavior hasn't changed much since then.

"(The watercolors) are literally copies - as good as I could make them. A friend told me it's anthropophagy - it's cannibalism - and it is. They gave me nourishment."

Recently, Jones and I collaborated on a new book of her drawings and paintings. The accompanying text is an excerpt from a series of short essays I wrote to accompany her work. "Fay Jones" is published by Grover/Thurston Gallery in Seattle, and the Laura Russo Gallery in Portland, and will be distributed through the University of Washington Press in December.