Bold strokes of color, clashing colors, images of what might be water, maybe a dragon, maybe a soul being rescued, or a soul being ripped out of its living host…through the abstract art of Gaw S. Jones, Jr., one can experience a wide range of emotions. His intentionally direct angle of brush stokes, combined with the softer curves and circular strokes, rock the viewer from calamity to a tranquil state of mind.
“Gaw’s work is dynamic. We are very impressed with what he is doing,” said Graham George, owner of The Studio Experience in Galveston. “He is very dedicated to each of his paintings.”
Jones spent more than half of his life either running away from gunfire or charging into war. As a child in civil war-torn Liberia, he witnessed gruesome war scenes and lost many family members before becoming a Marine later in his life’s journey.
After escaping the war in Liberia, his father took him and his siblings to live in Sierra Leon, where Jones attended high school. “I couldn’t erase the things I saw or lived through, I just had to go to school. I had to be better than all of that,” explained Jones. However, his mother and half-siblings remained behind in the war zone.
Jones’ family arrived in the United States through the refugee relocation plan in 1994. He enrolled in college in Trenton, NJ and was accepted as a walk-on-player with the soccer team. As a student, he was befriended by Marine recruiters, and it didn’t take him long to sign on.
“During the war, the US Marines were the first American Military I had contact with,” said Jones of his decision to enlist. “I always thought of them as being something special. A lot of innocent people were killed in the war, and if I ever went back, I wanted to be trained to be the best warrior so I could defend the innocent.”
On deployment in Burundi, Jones found his love and passion for the world of art. “A shop owner wanted myself and some other marines to pose with our shirts off, and we said no. Then he took us to the back of his shop and showed us his paintings. I was struck with his paintings,” Jones recounts.
It was then that Jones became an art collector. He purchased numerous paintings by a Burundi artist known as Arish and brought them back to the United States. Continuing the relationship, he arranged for the purchase and shipping of many more pieces by Arish. It was also during this period that Jones began working with his own canvas, paints, and brushes.
As a Master Sargent, Jones was sent to Ellington Field JRB. Upon retiring from the Marines, he had already completed many abstract paintings which he had become rather fond of and couldn’t bear to part with them. “They are like my babies,” he said as he explained why he keeps his original work in a storage room.
He does his creative work in the family garage in Friendswood. “I started inside the house, but I kept getting paint all over the ceiling and walls, so my wife asked me to move it to the garage,” laughs Jones.
Jones is currently in the process of having his originals scanned and stored in digital format so that he can begin to sell his “babies”. Some of his work is on display at the G Lee Gallery in Galveston.
However, don’t expect him to part with an original, at least until he knows he has it digitally saved, for his own comfort and for future print sales.
1 comment
Fascinating article about Gaw Jones, his background and his art. Nice job.