The international award-winning watercolor paintings by Rance Jones broaden the boundaries of watercolor technique.  Each watercolor is a masterful example of how the artist portrays the world that he explores through art.  His realistic style is both refreshing and relatable.  His sensitivity to expression, subtle body language and setting give the subjects of his watercolors a life-like beauty that has great emotion, elegance and impact.

Many of the stories told through a Rance Jones watercolor are simple, stolen moments: the graceful glance of a girl behind a gelato counter in Sirmione, Italy, an impromptu still life of fresh fruit and sweet syrup ablaze in the sun of San Miguel, Mexico, a bowl of fish soup in a Hungarian café dyed fire-red by paprika.

 

Photo Realistic in style, Rance Jones watercolors are heirs to a movement begun in the 1960’s by artists like Chuck Close, Charles Bell and Richard Estes.  An approach in art that tends to draw the viewer in by giving subjects commonly associated with emotional distance or indifference, a visceral and dramatic presence.  Rance Jones builds on that concept by demanding his watercolors represent much more than a copy of a photograph.  Drawing inspiration from the mastery of such painters as Degas, Whistler, Eakins, Homer, Monet and Andrew Wyeth, Rance Jones watercolors exhibit vibrant color, rhythm and movement.  Look how meticulous strokes of color lay next to and over one another forming textures and multitudes of tones.  Thin washes of pigment blend smoothly across a sky or delicately bring out fine wrinkles in a facial expression.