Rachel Jones explores a sense of self as a visual, and visceral experience. In her paintings, she grapples with the challenges of finding visual means to convey abstract, existential concepts. In depicting the psychological truths of being and the emotions these engender, abstraction becomes a way of expressing the intangible. The figure is notably abstracted in her works, as Jones is interested in ‘using motifs and colour as a way to communicate ideas about the interiority of Black bodies and their lived experience’. Abstracted mouths and teeth suggest a symbolic and literal entry point to the interior and the self. Within this vivid inner landscape, oral and, more recently, floral forms emerge and recede from view.

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