Laurence Jones is a London-based British artist who plays with ideas of authenticity and memory. His paintings of half-familiar American modernist buildings and illuminated swimming pools, set in stark terrains under darkening skies, carry a special emotive force.
How and where do you collect your references from? Do the scenes lie more in fantasy or fiction?
My references come from a diverse range of sources—personal photographs, drawings, and mass-media imagery. These materials are carefully selected and manipulated to create scenes that blur the line between fantasy and fiction. By recontextualizing familiar imagery, I aim to create a sense of ambiguity where the viewer is unsure if they are witnessing a tangible reality or a fabricated construction. The resulting compositions are not strictly one or the other but exist in the liminal space between the two.
Laurence Jones, Reflections on Concrete Canyons, 2024, acrylic and mica flakes on Belgian linen, 60 x 90 cm
When you use software such as Photoshop to manipulate source imagery, do you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve?
When I begin working with Photoshop, I don’t always have a fixed vision for the final composition. It’s a fluid and exploratory process where ideas evolve as I layer, distort, and reconfigure the imagery. Sometimes, an unexpected juxtaposition or an accidental overlap becomes the key to unlocking a new focus for the work. While I may have a general mood or concept in mind, the process itself often guides me toward unexpected directions that deepen the complexity of the work.
Your paintings set a scene of tranquillity on the edge of disruption, the pools remain smooth and rarely rippled. Is there a reason your paintings are not populated?
The absence of the figure in my paintings is deliberate. It allows the viewer to project themselves into the scene, creating a more personal engagement with the work. The stillness of the pools and the lack of visible human presence suggest a moment of pause, but also hint at something unsettling—a kind of unresolved tension. By withholding certain narrative elements, I invite the viewer to speculate and fill in the gaps, emphasizing the power of implied rather than explicit storytelling.
Lot 1. Laurence Jones - Study for Infinity Pool, 2024, acrylic on plywood, 30 x 22.8 x 0.6 cm
Your paintings perfectly capture moments of stillness which border on eerie; what kind of dystopia would you say your paintings inhabit? Is this feeling intentional?
Rather than suggesting a dystopia, my paintings aim to create an open-ended space that invites exploration and personal interpretation. The stillness of the scenes, paired with the hyperreal, high gloss quality of the finish provides a sense of pause—an opportunity for the viewer to reflect and form their own relationship with the imagery. The smooth, unbroken surfaces of the pools evoke calm but also create room for interpretation of what lies beyond the frame, or beneath the surface. This ambiguity is intentional, encouraging the viewer to engage with the work not so much as a prescriptive narrative but as a space of possibility and introspection.
Ed Ruscha, Billy Al Bengston, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, and Craig Kauffman all historically experimented with a distinctly ‘LA Look’ in their work, with a focus on plasticity and modern materials. Are you inspired by any of these artists or aesthetic?
Yes, I find significant inspiration in the aesthetics of the “LA Look” and the work of these artists. Their engagement with surface, materiality, and the artificiality of modern environments resonates with my exploration of the mediated image. Like their work, my paintings often incorporate a synthetic quality, achieved through layered glazes and a meticulous rendering process. The repetition of motifs like pools and palm fronds also nods to the Pop Art tradition and the cultural imagery of Southern California. While my work extends beyond their specific context, I share their fascination with how material and image interact to create narratives rooted in modernity and artifice
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Questions by Victoria Lucas
