Angelica Elizabeth Jones
My practice mainly consists of mixed media paintings of life-size black portraiture. My work serves as an imagined archive, akin to and informed by Toni Morrison‘s rememory and Saidiya Hartman‘s critical fabulation. I almost exclusively paint on found objects, as I enjoy their lingering energies guiding the work. This process felt deeply reminiscent of how me and my community came into our queerness, relying on thrifting and stealing gender affirming products. Mediums for the work are decided through careful interaction with the material - the haze of chalk pastel to highlight the depth of velvet, multichrome pigments to highlight the geometry of OSB wood. These mixed media works are often large and exhibited at eye level so that they serve as objects, alters, and even portals into the collective black queer psyche. Community is also at the core of my practice as an artist and educator; scenes of connection permeate my collection. Interiors of homes, churches and diners serve as backdrops for vulnerable and raw interactions between both the figures and the viewers. My scenes blur the personal and political, experienced media and lived reality. I utilize perceived low-brow media (like reality TV, video games, and erotica) acknowledging and honoring its impact on the viewer. I wade in the mundane, creating artifacts that pay homage to black life by infusing these moments with vivid colors and tactile symbolism. My hope is that these works can simultaneously capture our lived experience while helping viewers to imagine and build a world beyond.
Angel Jones is a painter & educator based in Baltimore, MD. Growing up in High Point, North Carolina, she was raised in a tight-knit, matriarchal family emphasizing ancestry and spirituality. Since she was a child, she’s used painting as a vessel to document her and her communities' experiences of the world, often depicting these stories with an imaginative approach informed by the various subcultures she belongs to. All of her work is anchored in a deep fascination with images’ role in cultural narratives and as a painter, fibers artist, teacher, and cultural worker, she attempts to expand viewers' imaginations surrounding rigid social hierarchies like race, gender, class and beauty. She took this pursuit with her to the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she graduated with a BFA in Painting. She’s exhibited across the East Coast (the Kennedy Center, the Colored Girls Museum, and the Peale Museum, etc.), participated in programs like the VSA Emerging Artists Fellowship and the New Generation Scholars Young Artists Archival Fellowship while working as a Gallery Assistant at Make Studio and special educator with SALA/ESY.
FELLOWSHIPS
2025 VSA Emerging Artists Fellowship
A program providing professional development activities at the Kennedy Center to artists with disabilities, displaying their work in a national juried exhibition.
2025 New Generation Scholars Young Artist Archival Fellowship (Muse360)
A 6-month program in collaboration with Muse360 and Afro Charities that incorporated access to archival material, multidisciplinary workshops, and intergenerational communication, culminating in an Exhibition at the Peale Museum.
EXHIBITIONS
Sacred Ground: Spirit, Memory, and Meaning in Baltimore— Baltimore Unity Hall, Baltimore, MD (2025)
Wishing You Infinite Rest curated by Patricia Renee Thomas — The Colored Girls Museum, Philadelphia, PA (2025)
Catalyst: 2025 Access/VSA Emerging Young Artists Program — The Kennedy Center, Washington DC (2025)
Of Yesterday and Tomorrow: A Group Exhibition by NGSYAA — The Peale Museum, Baltimore, Maryland (2025)
What Touch Remembers: An Art Exhibition presented by Hot Bits Film Festival and curated by Chelsey Luster — the Club Car, Baltimore, MD (2025)
Thread: An Exhibition and Artist Book Celebrating Baltimore’s Local Artists — Make Studio Gallery, Baltimore, MD (2025)
Granting Life Her Luster — Fred Lazarus IV Center, Baltimore, MD (2024)
A Solo-Exhibition
Ebb & Flow — Fred Lazarus IV Center, Baltimore, MD (2024)
Dreams of Home — The MOSAIC Center, Baltimore, MD (2024)
It Feels Right To Me: An Exploration of the Erotic Curated by Mina Safaraz & Madi Diaz — Middendorf Gallery, Baltimore, MD (2024)
Ways of Being — Fox 2 Gallery, Baltimore, MD (2023)
Breakout: G2G Again — Night Owl Gallery, Baltimore, MD (2023)
Fresh Paint: Junior Painting Exhibition — Fred Lazarus IV Center, Baltimore, MD (2023)
Maryland Institute College of Art Undergraduate Juried Exhibition — Decker Gallery, Baltimore, MD (2023 & 2024)
NC Congressional Art Competition — Capitol Building, Washington, DC (2021)