Beginnings
Chelsea College of Arts, London
1994-1997
Head Extension, 1994
Jones’ investigations into ideas of physical and metaphorical space began at Chelsea with his Extension works. Walking the streets and public spaces of London with wooden protrusions strapped to his body, he carved and claimed his own space. The long protruding tendrils seen in the Bio-Morph-Thing works, created 20 years on, echo these early works and highlight the recurrent themes at play throughout Jones’ oeuvre.
Royal College of Art, London
1997–1999
I think it’s coming this way, 1999
Enduring aspects of Jones’ practice, including an interest in ‘found’ materials and science fiction and a questioning of form and material can be seen in his earliest sculptural works. For I think it’s coming this way (named after a Drum & Bass track by Photek) - Jones’ final degree show piece at the Royal College of Art - he used cardboard carpet tubing and expanding foam to create a series of large otherworldly, hive-like structures, relishing in the familiar made unfamiliar.
Popcornaut Is Born 1999
Popcornaut portrait, 2003
As a Caribbean-British artist from Harrow who studied at Chelsea and the Royal College of Art, Jones often felt he existed between spaces. While studying, the alter-ego, ‘Popcornaut’, was born. Seeking originality, Jones became fascinated by the sculptural potential of popcorn, imagining himself at the vanguard of experiments with genetically modified kernels sent into space and exploded into forms the size of houses, to be returned to earth as living structures (see Popcornball to Earth below). Inspired by the lyrics to ‘Looking for the Perfect Beat’ by Soulsonic Force, Popcornaut was ‘looking,’ ‘searching’ and ‘seeking’ a utopia. Ever since, Jones’ work uses everyday objects and found materials to explore the space between opposing forces such as the real or imagined, natural or synthetic and dangerous or benign.
Popcornball Spacestation to Earth, 2001
An International
Stage
Sapporo Artist in Residence, Sapporo, Japan 2001
Anomaly in landscape, 2001
A three-month residency in Sapporo, Japan saw Jones begin to explore the potential of cardboard - a material that he has returned to time and time again. By building a site-specific cardboard landscape within a small space within the exhibition, Jones created a space, within a space. As viewers peered in through the open doorway, they were given a birdseye view of a forgotten landscape reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s camerawork shots of the mountains in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Popcornaut Will Travel, Gallery 88, Hamburg, Germany
2002
Have mountain will travel, 2002 Installation view, Gallery 88, Hamburg
For the exhibition Popcornaut Will Travel in Hamburg, Jones continued the cardboard works begun in Japan the previous year. This time positioning his strange map or landscape in a recess within the ceiling.
