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Isn’t It Romantic is the debut exhibition of paintings by Louise Jones (née Chen), aka Ouizi. Born in Santa Monica, CA to Shanghainese parents, Detroit-based Jones is best known for her large-scale floral mural installations which have been commissioned throughout the United States, including the New Britain Museum of American Art, The North Carolina Museum of Art, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Smithsonian Archives of American Art and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.   

Her new works on canvas highlight floral subjects in all their many guises, from beauty contest bouquets to get-well soon arrangements that arrived too late. Her affinity for painting botanical subjects stems from an early introduction to Georgia O’Keeffe and a life long love of floral textile patterns. Jones’s art reveals an inclination toward both the delicacy and brutality of the natural world. Moldy strawberries capture still-life in decay. Monarch butterflies mating in captivity (amidst a seamy neon herald) ask us to ponder our gaze. Evaporative moments are painted with an urgency which serve to remind us of our own mortality.About her artistic process, Jones states:

"When I moved to Detroit in 2014, I was just learning about the seasons.  I grew up in Santa Monica, a place where the weather rarely fluctuates more than 10 degrees from 70.  All the people are carefully put together, the buildings meticulously maintained and pastel. 

The first time I saw a Crocus blooming out of the snow, it felt like a religious experience.  People warned me about Michigan winters, but I love a challenge and I was prepared.  Above all, my love for the city was stronger than my fear of the cold, even though I was living in an abandoned house with no heat, proper plumbing, or insulation.  During this period I was making paintings that were supposed to speak about spirituality.  Experiencing seasons for the first time felt like discovering a higher power for me. I didn’t grow up with religion.  I was looking for something to make art about, and a deep connection that felt like being in love. I found this at the time in flowers.

During this time, I was visiting a Hare Krishna temple down the street from my new old house in Detroit often.  I was inspired by the colorful imagery in the artworks, the decorative floral garlands and shiny altars, but I mainly went for the free food.  I borrowed the altar aesthetic.  I was drawn to ritual, and how heavily flowers were ritualized.  Eastern religions place a lot of spiritual symbolism in flowers.   Perhaps this notion was ingrained in me from an early age, having grown up in a Chinese household. 

Back then I was more interested in painting On Things rather than paintings Of Things.  My canvases were discarded table tops, scrap wood, vintage paper; and antique fabric and lace.  I didn’t have disposable income for art supplies, but I didn’t care.  I was content to get by on either the collective resources or the refuse of society.  Every day felt like an adventure, and I was manifesting moments of clarity and synchronicity in almost anything.  Perhaps that’s an artifact of youthful magical thinking, a universal season of life.  Back then, everything felt so romantic, but I am much more interested now in unravelling from where those feelings originate.  The heart goes through seasons too.  After 8 years in Detroit, I only recently discovered that Water lilies bloomed in the canals behind my house.  Often, it takes a long time to see the things that are right in front of us, rather than what we wish to perceive.

Making paintings feels like honoring that which often is overlooked - reassessing ones first perspective, and making small, fleeting moments immortalized.