Jones’ paintings describe a world of illuminated interiors, ordinary possessions, and quiet acts of attachment. Refrigerators glow softly in darkened rooms, a small bouquet emerges from a can, a cigarette rests above a flower, and a cat inhabits a microwave as though occupying a private stage. There is something of Didion’s California here: a landscape shaped by aspiration, self-fashioning, and consumer desire, in which familiar objects appear subtly burdened with feeling.

For this exhibition, Jones presents a new group of paintings exploring themes associated with contemporary American life. Drawing on images collected from advertising, social media, art history, and personal photographs, the works consider the emotional and symbolic weight carried by everyday objects. Throughout the exhibition, the human figure is largely absent, appearing only at the margins as a backdrop for the paintings’ true subject: the cat. A recurring motif in Jones’ work, these feline companions—like Baudelaire’s familiars—become vessels for affection, longing, and projection.

One of the central works in the exhibition depicts a white cat reclining within the dimly lit interior of a refrigerator, surrounded by food, bottles, and household goods. The illusion of recessed space, as inside the fridge, is repeated in several works throughout the show, from the painting of a cat peering out of a silver microwave adorned with stickers, to the painting of flowers arranged within a La Croix can, placed inside a cardboard shipping box. Combining two ubiquitous symbols of contemporary consumer culture—thebrandedbeverageandthedisposablepackage—theworkreflectsonsystemsofcirculation, value, and desire, while echoing the structures of the 17th-century Dutch still life; a resonance that subtly recalls the artist’s earlier career as an art historian.

Amidst the fauna are a group of smaller paintings that focus on flowers: a rose, a pansy, and a foxglove among them. Isolated against dark grounds, these images recall both historical botanical painting and the compressed visual language of contemporary digital photography. The smaller scale prompts closer observation and a slower reading that resists the accelerated pace of our daily image consumption.

Moving from digital composites to painted supports, Jones produces his analog translations by painting upon layers of clear acrylic on linen that are sanded between each application of painted imagery. The dissonance between the strata of linen, acrylic, and oil creates an almost lenticular effect. The paintingemerges,andthepathofthedigital imagegrindstoahalt,inthisprocessthatRebeccaShiffman describes as “their deceleration into paint.”

Joseph Jones, The Brooklyn Rail, 2026