Bree Jonson
Published October 16, 2020
The paintings of Bree Jonson have been called fables and enigmas. They show creatures in various states and activities, some bizarre and otherworldly. But her paintings are hardly exercises in faithful naturalistic resemblance. On the contrary, they show her studying then reimagining flora and fauna as her reflections on human relationships and experience. And her creatures are playactors in a visual drama about her own existence, her mortality, her body, and so on.
At the same time however, Jonson's paintings invite us to see the wild as untouched by man. The viewer is just a visitor, an out-of-place witness to a strange inhuman world. Each painting suggests an eerie quiet but for the sounds of the wild. They point to an immense earthly realm that behaves outside of our reach and knowledge, untamed jungles, the underwater depths, microscopic pools.
Bree Jonson is a Filipino contemporary artist who left a career in engineering. After a brief stint as musician, she has since focused her time on making art. Aesop’s fables, a veterinarian mother, and the wild-life from her childhood have had a part in influencing her artistic choices. She participates in exhibitions regularly. Her latest solo exhibitions include “Notes on Stillness’ at Yavuz Gallery, Singapore and “Writhing“ at OUR ArtProjects, Kuala Lumpur.
