Darren Jones

Square Palette Miniature #17 (2021)
2" x 2" (with a 6" x 8" frame)
Mixed media

Participant: 2019, 2020, 2021

In 2015, Darren Jones moved into his own art studio in the Ravenswood neighbourhood of Chicago. It was an exciting time and a catalyst for the next stage in his artistic career. The year prior, he began using paper plates as a tool for his paint palette and has continued to use this process to this day. Using them daily to mix/ blend the paint colours, beach sands and plasters while working on each painting. Some would be reused over and over and over. Because of this process, as the years went by, he acquired quite a collection of these palettes, over 300 hundred and counting.

After posting the photo of him holding a stack of some of the plates on social media, his mind started wondering. "I really wanted to do something special and creative with these. I wasn't sure what that was, but I knew I had to do something with them" At first he thought of working on something more sculptural, but then an idea struck him and the "Square. Palette Miniatures" was conceived. This colourful collection of unique, one of a kind paintings has been carefully curated by Jones in the studio. Each one different from the next, making a statement on their own, or displayed with a few others.