bio

Catherine Jones is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in Brooklyn, NY, living and teaching in Mississippi. She has an MFA in studio art from Brooklyn College. Jones was born in Starkville, MS in 1973 and grew up there. She attended Birmingham-Southern College and received a BFA with a concentration in painting in 1996. Subsequently, she studied graphic design and worked as a graphic designer and art director for nearly 20 years. Her work in the commercial realm influenced and informed her art practice and helped her realize she prefers working with tactile materials rather than exclusively in the digital space. She now works with earth pigments gathered in her home state of Mississippi. From 2017 to 2018, Jones was selected for the Trestle Art Space Residency program. In 2019, she was honored to receive a Wolff-Ravenal travel grant. She taught Basic Design, Drawing, and Color to undergraduate students at Brooklyn College through a Graduate Teoaching Fellowship (Fall 2020-Spring 2021). Currently, Jones is a Visiting Artist Assistant Professor at Mississippi State University.

statement

I make paintings and drawings with earth pigments gathered in my birth state of Mississippi which I embed into fabric. Through process and materiality, I am examining my relationship to a place associated with a violent and oppressive history; I am also contemplating how this same place, through a connection with nature, brings healing and regeneration. My process is to grind the soil into smaller particles, sift it through a fine mesh, and sometimes further filter through water. I then add water or an acrylic medium to the transformed soil and use a printmaking squeegee to embed the pigment solution into the canvas. For works on paper, I use a brush or palette knife to paint pigment onto the surface. Striated layers of soil sediment are historical records of the passage of time on this planet. Selma chalk from the Late Cretaceous period (60-70 million years ago), when the Gulf of Mexico covered much of what is now the state of Mississippi, is composed of shells and marine life. Iron, rich red clay pigments, from Maben soils, were formed from Tertiary-age sediments (60-2.6 million years ago). The language of Geology becomes intermixed with the visual language of Minimalism and Abstraction. The varied mineral and biological compositions of the pigments create subtle, tonal gradations reminiscent of the ephemeral light of a setting sun or the regenerative light of a sunrise. I am interested in creating a sustainable art practice and see this practice as a reflection of my broader concerns around environmental sustainability and planetary and human well-being. These works are an attempt to create meditative spaces for education, healing, restoration and reimagining.

cv

Education

Brooklyn College |  MFA Studio Art  |  Brooklyn, NY | 2021
Birmingham-Southern College |  Bachelor of Fine Arts, painting  |  Birmingham, AL | 1996
Parsons | Continuing Education courses | Screen Printing under Marie Dormuth | New York, NY

Residencies | Fellowships | Awards | Teaching

Fall 2024 - Spring 2025 Visiting Artist Assistant Professor: Foundations Courses and NYC Field Study, College of Architecture, Art and Design, Mississippi State University, MS
Fall 2023 - Spring 2024 Lecturer: Foundations Courses, College of Architecture, Art and Design, Mississippi State University, MS
2023 Sanctuary Slimane Artist Residency, Marrakech, Morocco
2020 - 2021 Graduate Teaching Fellow, Brooklyn College
2019 Recipient of the Ravenal Travel Grant, Brooklyn College
2018 - 2019 Trestle   |  Trestle Art Space  |  Residency Advisor Adrienne Elise Tarver  | Brooklyn, NY