Ronald Jones.

WHERE New Orleans, June 1992

A Southern Style

Regional artists capture images of the South and her people in works featured at several New Orleans galleries

By Louise McKinney

[EXCERPT]... This year's official Jazz and Heritage Festival poster image is by Savannah, Ga.-born artist Ronald Jones. Unlike Tweedy, Jones likes to "show the elasticity of human form and movement." His stylized figures represent African-Americans at work, or playing, but seldom at rest. "Congo Square," through the symbol of one leaping figure, depicts the social and creative activities of slaves who gathered to meet at this sanctioned spot (now located in Louis Armstrong Park) in the city. Here was the scene of "festive jubilation" – in spite of so much suffering. Jones says that research at archives in New Orleans' U.S. Mint Building yielded little in the way of images for him to use in order to re-create the past: instead, he went out to the park "to try to feel the vibrations" of people who lived long ago.

"My art reflects the roots from whch I grow – Africa. Each African-American that I enounter, I visualize as one of my ancestors," says Jones. In a work entitled "Home Sweet Home," Jones paints the form of a Black woman ironing. It is an unusual composition, viewing the laborer's travails from the artist's perspective behind her, and looking out the small room's window to a field outside. The figure is bent over in concentration on her work and speaks of deliverance through toil. With nearly 20 exhibitions in the past two years, Jones, too, has toiled – mostly pleasurably – to communicate his own vision through his oeuvre. Both Ronald Jones' and Jim Tweedy's work may be viewed at The Collection, Ltd. Int'l. (240 Chartres St.; 525-2818).

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