Tressa Jones: a capacity to become more

Tressa Jones, our 2016-17 printmaking resident, is having her solo exhibition opening this Final Friday. The reception for her show will go from 5-9 pm. Come out to see the amazing work she has created while living here in Lawrence. Read Tressa’s description of her exhibition along with her artist biography below.

 

This body of work began a year ago when I was living in Big Sky Country. The American West is vast and awe inspiring but in a way that can fill you with dread; the horizon is a pronounced feature in the everyday but unequivocally a place that can never be reached. I always felt small next to that horizon. The horizon in Kansas appears more attainable, as if it is the halfway place between the sea and the sky. These vast blues exemplify that halfway place and its distance, hope, and mystery. Embracing hope means also embracing distance and then, not without uncertainty, things can keep becoming until they are indeed uncircumscribable.

 

Tressa Jones was raised in the sprawling suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. She received a BS from the University of Massachusetts and a MFA from the University of Montana. Her artistic practice and research investigate time, memory, and perception: as experienced through the body, landscapes, and built environments. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad and in 2018 she will participate in the 9th International Printmaking Biennial in Douro, Portugal. Tressa currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas where she is the 2016/17 Printmaking Artist-in-Residence at the Lawrence Arts Center.