Helen's Room 2017

Jonas Wood made this large painting, Helen's Room, by building up layers of flat colour to depict an intimate domestic scene. I can imagine him figuring out how to fit it all together, shifting elements around to create that particular spatial tension. It’s the kind of space that feels both familiar and slightly off-kilter, right? I'm drawn to the way Wood uses pattern and colour to flatten the perspective, almost like a collage. The blue stripes of the bedspread, the leafy green painting on the wall, even the cat napping on the bed – everything is rendered with a kind of graphic clarity. You can feel the artist experimenting with depth and surface. For me, it’s as if Wood is in conversation with Matisse and Hockney, borrowing and remixing their ideas to create something entirely his own. But painting is always like that, isn't it? It's a constant process of exchange and reinvention.