Lucia Jones is a Welsh painter based in Cardiff. Since graduating from Falmouth University in 2014, she has exhibited throughout the UK in solo and group exhibitions including BEEP Painting Prize 2018. Her work is held in private collections in the UK, USA, Hong Kong and Austria.

Jones’ work delves into memory and self-perception through the mediums of paint and film, with a focus on the female psyche within painted spaces. Drawing from obscure 1950s-90s B-movies, she recontextualises female figures, transforming them into anonymised subjects within fragmented and fabricated environments. Liberated from their original cinematic settings, these figures inhabit the intersection of the revealed and concealed, the real and imagined. Absorbed into her painted world, their contexts are reshaped, acting as ciphers of lived experience and inviting viewers to explore the fluid nature of memory and identity.

Her recent work builds on this exploration by focusing on the performative nature of societal expectations placed on women, where the act of "making a spectacle of oneself" becomes a source of both tension and empowerment. Here, Jones expands her investigation of female identity, using painting to navigate the external pressures and the expectations thrust upon women.

Through allegorical imagery—beaches, sand, glitz, glam, curtains, water, windows, and phones—the works examine the delicate balance between societal constraints and personal autonomy. Beaches and sand evoke the cusps of new experiences, while glitz and glam represent the polished, curated facades that women are often expected to maintain. Curtains in the works reflect the duality of concealment and exposure, playing on the boundary between what is shown and what is hidden. Water, stagnant or rising, symbolises the emotional weight of these expectations, as women struggle with the world’s attempts to contain or overwhelm them. Phones act as metaphors for introspection and inner dialogue, standing as a vital connection to the self amidst the spectacle. Rather than tools of passive communication, they symbolise lifelines to authentic identity.

By drawing on art history, Jones’ own photographs and cinematic tropes, her recent paintings reclaim the concept of "making a spectacle" as an intentional act of power and agency even in its vulnerability. It acknowledges the complexity of female identity while offering space for reflection on how women can, inadvertently or purposefully, challenge and redefine these roles. The exhibition invites viewers to consider the tension between conformity and self-expression, and the quiet resilience required to maintain authenticity within these constraints.

Lucia exhibited at Irving Gallery as part of our group show A Room of Her Own in 2022, and she had a solo show, ‘Spectacle’ at the gallery in late 2024.