Heather Jones is an artist who uses abstraction and color to comment on the historical and socio-political relationship between women and textiles, and explores the relationship between gender, place, time, and culture in her work. Her practice continues the story of geometric abstraction inherent to women’s patchwork found in the Southern and Appalachian regions of the US, and her work is steeped in the history of quilt making and a vast group of unknown female makers. The subject of her work is unequivocally feminist: she chooses to work with fabric rather than paint, in reference and reverence to the fact that fiber arts were often the only type of art that women were encouraged to practice for many years throughout history. Conceptually, Jones’ work carries on the tradition of woman as maker, pushes the boundary between fine art and craft, and questions the definition of painting. She documents the story of our current world, particularly female narratives often neglected from history. By working within the realm of geometric compositions, Jones creates a universal visual language to tell these stories, using textiles as a reference to issues of domesticity.
Jones was selected as an artist-in-residence for Kehinde Wiley’s inaugural class at Black Rock Senegal, and worked there in October 2019. Her work has been exhibited widely at national and international venues, most recently at the Dakar Biennale, Dakar, Senegal, and at The Contemporary Dayton, Dayton, OH, paired with the work of Odili Donald Odita and Jeffrey Gibson.