Smoke and Mirrors

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

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“Smoke and Mirrors, as a show, truly seized my mind and heart. Seeing an artist so engaged with the immediacy of world events is powerful stuff; Jones is clearly pretty bold, saying what he needs to. He’s also not didactic - he is in no way telling you what to think or feel; he’s more initiating a conversation, asking if you see what he sees. His wild, visceral line and energised approach gives his work a truly immediate feel; it’s just great to see art this raw and vibrant that is so rooted in the realities of now. It’s also harrowing - but that’s important too; Jones is inviting us to try and process a complex moment in human history, and that will not be done by shutting our eyes.” ⁣⁣

Andrew Harper, Tas Weekend Magazine⁣