ABOUT
Todd Jones is a North Carolina-based artist and educator who transforms salvaged household materials into stratified sculptures and installations. He examines material culture through the lens of domestic life, repurposing construction debris and commercial waste to create “geological records” of contemporary consumption. By treating discarded objects as physical archives, he documents the shifting values and environmental footprints of modern society.
Grants through the North Carolina Arts Council, The Snapdragon Fund, and the Rauschenberg Foundation have supported his practice. Jones has expanded his research through an international residency at the Siena Art Institute in Italy and national programs at the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and the Diamante Arts and Cultural Center. His professional recognition includes being named a 2022 finalist for both the Miami University Young Painters Competition and the Boynes Emerging Artist Award.
Currently an Assistant Professor and Gallery Director at Meredith College, Jones integrates his studio practice with teaching and curating exhibitions for Frankie G. Weems and the Rotunda Gallery at Meredith College. His work is informed by his studies in Studio Art and Psychology to investigate the behavioral patterns that drive consumption. He holds an MFA from Ohio University and a BFA from Florida State University.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Household artifacts and materials, such as broken chairs and leftover paint, represent pieces of our stories, choices, and aspirations throughout the rapid rise of consumerism. I treat my studio as a laboratory driven by motivation to understand the origins, limits, and lifecycles of the materials that build our world. Here, I transform readily accessible debris past its intended boundaries, elevating it from a pollutant into a physical archive of human behavior. Through an expanded painting practice, I transform paint and construction materials into sculptural forms that reveal the hidden histories of construction and the remnants of urban and domestic life. Combining my artistic practice with environmental advocacy and my academic background in psychology, I create artworks that challenge our perceptions of consumer behavior and environmental awareness.
My work focuses on discarded and mistinted house paints, as well as other construction materials, sourced from local residents and landfills. Mistint paint results from a buyer being dissatisfied with an incorrect color or finish choice. Intercepting these paints before they are buried in landfills gives them a new purpose, rather than potentially contaminating the environment. Through this process, which resembles archaeological activities such as excavation, collection, and curation, I transform salvaged paints into vibrant, stratified sculptures. I repeatedly pour and dry layers of paint to create dense ‘paint skins’, then intuitively manipulate and carve them, treating this subtractive process as a method of sculptural drawing inspired by the natural structures of geological formations. The shavings from this excavation process are then repurposed and incorporated into resin molds of antiquated household items, such as candelabras and ornate picture frames. The process of collecting local waste shapes my ongoing exploration of material transformation across different cities and cultures. I examine how various communities generate and discard materials and adapt their historical techniques using the specific debris native to the region. For example, during my residency in Sienna, Italy, I modified the traditional Italian practice of scagliola, the process of casting plaster, animal glue, and natural pigments into decorative false marble, by substituting pigments with discarded house paint and commercial waste. Similar to a trompe-l'œil painting that creates a three-dimensional optical illusion on a two-dimensional surface, this process relies on color and surface texture to mimic the appearance of stone.
My background in psychology informs how I analyze these materials and recognize them as symbols of our culture’s fascination with identity and attention, depicting the psychological dynamics of shifting cultural desires. I mold together the physical waste and invisible memories generated by our ever-changing economy. My connection to these objects begins with observing the lifecycle of possessions in thrift stores, antique shops, and online markets. I am interested in the histories embedded in an item and in the psychological process by which an item’s value to an individual diminishes over time. I capture their intrinsic memories and transform and perpetuate them into tangible artistic forms.
My artworks are a complex record of who we are and what we value. By scaling my investigations from the intimate domestic sphere to the broader urban landscape, I examine society’s specific waste streams, such as construction debris and commercial materials, as tangible archives of collective memory. I aim to prompt viewers to reflect on their relationship with material possessions, highlighting the intricate connections among consumerism, the spaces we inhabit, and the natural environment.