Katherine Jones RA: Fine Ladies and Gentle Men

Katherine Jones is a contemporary printmaker and painter who brings together complex narratives based on literary influences and natural forms.

Using a wide range of techniques, her rich and layered surfaces often reflect ideas about safety and danger, with archetypal motifs of domesticity and nature. Elected as an RA in 2022, Jones is a widely respected lecturer in the UK and Europe. At Gainsborough’s House, her work will be shown in the historic house offering a rich and challenging contrast to the eighteenth century collection.

The title Fine Ladies and Gentle Men alludes to flowers and the human conditions or characteristics associated with them (the face of a pansy or the throat of a lily, for example). It is also a nod towards the sitters in Gainsborough’s many society portraits, showing off – as plants do – with finery and accoutrements of status. 

The exhibition will showcase a combination of prints and small panel paintings with a particular focus on plant and flower forms and the embellishments employed to attract their pollinators. The 400-year-old black Mulberry Tree in the orchard garden is used as the focus of a large 4 panel print, its branches entwined with references to Gainsborough’s House and paintings within its collection. Repeated overlapping leaf motifs are reminiscent of Sudbury’s fine decorative silk, and the repeating renewals of nature. 

Image credit (above): © Gainsborough’s House | Jackie Mellor Photography