Artists

Otis Jones

Press release

Twelve years ago, while setting up his exhibition in our gallery in Zurich, Bret Slater (*1987) told us about Otis Jones, whom he had met while studying in Dallas and subsequently supported and accompanied as an assistant for several years. Enthused by this position, which was unknown to us at the time, we invited Bret and Otis to Zurich for a duo show one year later — Otis’ first presentation outside of Texas. This was followed in 2016 by a solo exhibition by Otis Jones at annex14, and we introduced him to an extremely interested audience at various European art fairs. Unfortunately, we then lost touch with each other – Otis Jones passed away at the age of 79 at the beginning of September 2025. To this day, however, we remain fascinated by the presence of his work and its immediacy, the visualization of the working process with its differentiated application of paint, the countless staples he used to fix the canvas, and the rawness and materiality of the frame, which give the painting an object-like character. But also Jones' consistent reduction to a few geometric shapes, the dots, rectangles, or lines that he usually arranged symmetrically on the surface and often gave descriptive and at the same time humorous titles. With this small presentation in Bern and Zurich, we would like to remember Otis Jones. We are grateful that we were able to accompany him and his artistic activity for a moment and arrange his first exhibitions and contacts in Europe.