Ella Jones, Aidan Threlfall Award 2022 – 2022/23

My painting practice uses Cubism to explore the tensions and contradictions between race and class in South- East London, the community in which I grew up. Presenting these histories alongside those of Cubism, I highlight Cubism’s own relationship with Colonialism, moving back and forth between history and the present, the centre and the periphery, challenging the Cubist form whilst pushing it to represent more.

I was granted the Aidan Threlfall Award in March 2020 to explore the de-Colonial Modernism of Wifredo Lam, having been accepted onto an artist residency in Havana, Cuba. I had spent just two weeks settling into the residency before Coronavirus hit and I was forced to return to London. After two years of lockdown, and thanks to the Aidan Threlfall Trust, I was able to return to the residency in November 2022.

Thanks to the Aidan Threlfall Award, the residency remains a formative moment in my early artistic career. The prints have since been shortlisted in the UK for a prize in contemporary printmaking and I am currently seeking funding to continue my research and practice in the medium.