Locust Jones: Smoke and Mirrors
For over 20 years, Locust's practice has woven layers of stories and images that replicate the frenetic pace at which society consumes everyday news and current affairs, in a variety of mediums.
I can't avoid the smoke and mirrors in the relentless 24/7 news cycles, the obscured truth, the embellished, misleading and irrelevant information. These ink drawings are my response. Over the course of eighteen months in Kyoto, Tokyo, and Katoomba, immersed in the world’s unfolding events, this is a visual diary. Each stroke grapples with the tension between appearance and reality, the narratives filtered through my personal lens.
- Locust Jones, 2025
Born in 1963, Christchurch, New Zealand, Locust Jones currently lives and works in the Blue Mountains, Australia.In 2010 Locust completed a Masters of Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts (Sydney University) where earlier in 1993 he completed an undergraduate degree in Print Media.
Since graduating Locust has held over 25 solo exhibitions within Australia and internationally, including: Burn Freeze, David Krut Projects, New York (2014); Descent into the Mass Media Maelstrom, Galerie Patrick Ebensperger, Berlin (2014); 24HR News Feed, Christchurch Art Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand (2013) and Some Mistakes were Perhaps Made, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW (2012)
Locust has participated in numerous museum exhibitions including: Art Gallery of South Australia, Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. His work is held in major public collections including: Art Gallery of New South Wales; Art Gallery of South Australia; Artbank; Bathurst Regional Art Gallery; National Gallery of Victoria; Australian War Memorial; Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, New Zealand; James Wallace Trust, Auckland, New Zealand; National Gallery of Australia; Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery; Kunstwerk Museum; Collection of Peter W. and Alison Klein, Stuttgart, Germany and the Shepparton Art Museum.