ABOUT

Jason Willaford

Willaford new painting series represents a return to traditional, narrative painting after 20 years of abstract painting and maximalist installations with vinyl billboard constructions. Willaford's return back to representational painting began when reflecting upon the photographs he had taken of the fish he’d caught. “I was looking at photos on my phone with my hand next to fish or holding fish that I’d caught. It reminded me of my family’s legacy and what I have seen my father and others do my whole life,” says Willaford. He began questioning why this tradition of measuring fish by the length of the catcher's hand exists, and began working on the paintings which are part of his new series ‘Taking Liberties’. Following Roys's passing in 2017, Willaford found catharsis in painting scenes reminiscent of the trips his father took him on. “When I look at these paintings of my hands holding fish, I see RJ’s hands,” says Willaford. Using large brushes and his entire arm in a dynamic, visceral bravura, the artist builds — in thick impasto — a bright mosaic-like surface that eschews local color and highlights his singular way of demarcating zones of dark and light. "It's kind of the way I see the world," Willaford says, "seeing in highlights and shadows” — a perception intrinsically linked to the training the eye receives through hunting and fishing: the glimmering of water that catches the light; the reflections on foliage among the trees.

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Jason Willaford received his BFA from Florida State University where he studied under Jim Roche and Color Field painter Trevor Bell. After years as an encaustic painter in Marfa, Texas, he shifted his focus to vinyl-based constructions, which were exhibited in a solo exhibition at Oklahoma Contemporary in 2014. In the summer of 2015, Willaford participated in a residency at the former home and studio of Elaine de Kooning in East Hampton, NY and presented the resulting body of work in a solo show at Dallas Contemporaryl. In 2019, Willaford was commissioned by Green Box Arts Festival in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado to create an outdoor billboard installation, joining artists like Spencer Finch who have also completed the project. His work can be found in over 200 private and the public collections, including Bloomingdales, Toyota Headquarters, Fidelity, Clements Collection UTSW, Kirkpatrick Foundation, and Neiman Marcus. He lives and works in Dallas, TX.