Barrie Jones
(1955–)
Barrie Jones
1955–
Barrie Jones (late 1950s?– ) is a Vancouver-based photographer who combines several concepts and techniques in his work. He is particularly known for focusing on the human figure as a site of complex personal and collective identities. After receiving his BFA from the University of British Columbia, Jones spent a considerable amount of time in Ontario, where he earned an MFA from York University and began instructing at the university level. Since relocating to Vancouver in the nineties, Jones has established his career as a prominent artist and figure within the Canadian art community. Jones’s work is often large in scale. He engages with color and black-and-white photography, employing techniques ranging from digitally generated or manipulated imagery to compositions mounted on various surfaces, including canvas and other innovative materials.
Jones’s practice also focuses on the urban environment and its many intersecting layers of social, economic, and personal histories. Jones describes his work as “negotiated documentaries,” and these oscillate between social documentary and directed fiction. Jones draws no clear distinction between the “naturally occurring” and the “arranged,” often engaging people to “play themselves” in his works. The works resulting from this approach display a compressed sense of narrative and a sense of the familiar. Engaged with what Jones calls social studies, his pictures expose multiple economic, political, and social arrangements, often using the figure to display ensuing vulnerabilities.
In 2017, Jones was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Art.