McKinney Center to host artist Charles Jones exhibition

The McKinney Center will host painter Charles Jones on Friday, March 18 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Jones will be present for questions during the opening night of his exhibition. This series of paintings is entitled “Time to Feed the Zebras”. After opening night, the exhibition is free and open to the public, Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the McKinney Center. All artwork will be for sale.

“In my artistic life, I have tried to express my experience of that multifarious reality rather than to explain it as one of a more scientific and philosophic temperament might do,” Jones explained referring to this series. “In pursuit of that, I have tried to be influenced by everybody, have tried to live in each and all of their visions, not to appropriate their insights, but in order to try to experience all and put that all in painting so that one might catch just a glimpse, the tiniest little peek at the merest hint of the unfathomable and appreciate our own grand good fortune to be here in the middle of it all for a while.”

Jones grew up in Wayne and Greene Counties in North Carolina. He attended East Carolina University where he studied sculpture, painting and received a BFA in 1968. After a stint in the army, Jones studied painting at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he received an MFA in 1974. From that time until 2003, he lived and worked in Seattle. He showed extensively, primarily with Kimsey-Miller Gallery, as well as in numerous competitions, group shows and invitationals. Since moving to East Tennessee in 2003, Jones’ work has appeared at the 27^th and 28^thAnnual First Tennessee Art Shows at the Reece Museum at East Tennessee State University, the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts Mountain Visions show in 2010, the 2013-2018 Jonesborough Open Juried Art Shows (winning Best in Show in 2015), the 2013 Grade AA Cage Free show at Slocumb Galleries and presenting a two man show with ceramicist Jim Oxandale December 2016-January 2017 at the McKinney Center in Jonesborough. Jones also had paintings in the 2018 and 2019 Kingsport Arts Guild’s Appalachian Art Show, winning prizes both years. His work was featured in a solo show at the Kingsport Art Guild main gallery in the Renaissance Center in October of 2019.

Jones’ work can currently be seen at Impressions Fine Art in Kingsport and also on Instagram @c31jones.

For more information, email Theresa Hammons at theresah@jonesborougtn.org or call 423-753-0562.