'THE PAINTED CLOSET'

JON FIELD

THE PAINTED CLOSET

In the early seventeenth century, Lady Anne Drury painted a series of small, religious pictures in her country house in Suffolk. She housed these in a specially designed ‘closet’, which she used as a kind of three-dimensional book, her painted panels functioning as objects of meditation.

During the covid pandemic I retreated to my studio (close to where the panels are housed) and began re-working Lady Anne’s project. Following her lead, I adopted the practice of recycling and repurposing the work of previous artists and writers. Also like her, I worked in solitude (in both projects, the term ‘closet’ alludes to personal, secret stuff). Despite these similarities, the two closets are very different: Instead of clarity, ambiguity. Instead of transcendence, immanence. And perhaps above all, instead of Puritanical certainty, twenty-first century doubt.

In addition to his exhibition at Asylum Studios, Jon Field will be giving a talk on Monday 10th July at 2pm in the gallery, entitled:

"The Painted Closet: T.M and the Creative Process"

Everyone welcome!

(T.M = Transcendental Meditation)

BIO

Jon Field was raised in Ipswich, England. After twenty years living in America he now lives in Ipswich, England. So it goes.

PRESS

"Jon Field has re-invented history painting so that it is relevant for our time. Field is an artist, he is an historian; and his work questions the role of the artist and the historian simultaneously." (Steve Aishmann, Art Relish)

Jon Field's website