Slope Striation
Earth Pigments, Found Fabric, Stretcher Bars
60” x 60” h (variable)
2021
Image courtesy of Smack Mellon. Photo: Etienne Frossard.
CATALOG TEXT by curator Rachel Vera Steinberg
Catherine Jones makes paintings and drawings using earth pigments found in her home state of Mississippi. The pigments range from Selma Chalk, which is a layer of sediment from an area formerly part of the Gulf of Mexico—lighter in color due to its composition of shells and marine life—to red clay, derived from Maben soils that are rich in iron. She grinds these pigments into powders and then uses a brush or pallet knife to embed them into her canvases, creating color fields and studies that emulate warm, striated sunsets.
Through her practice, she questions the ability to reconcile what has been taken from the earth with that which has been imposed upon it. Her works are rooted equally in methods of sustainability as well as the aesthetic operations of minimalism and abstraction--art movements that have entrenched histories of hierarchy. Mississippi, the bearer of the pigment-producing earth, is an integral part of the United States’ colonial and nationalistic project that has systematically removed the rights and histories of indigenous communities from the land. Using this specific earth, her work raises questions around the legacy attached to the land of her home state, acknowledging the combined power between history and property, and how beauty continues to rise through the surface of the planet. Ultimately, although she provides no concrete answers, through this work, Jones begins to trace pathways to regeneration and healing.