William E Jones

William E Jones’ practice is a three-decade-long investigation of socio-political issues through the lens of formal experimentation. The artist creates films, videos, photographs and books on topics ranging from the representation of gay men in sources like Eastern European pornography and police surveillance footage, to the psychedelia of Cold War military footage, to the decline of America’s industrial Midwest, to the formation and counterfeit of currency. Often working with found footage and archives but also conducting interviews and filming documentaries, Jones collages reality and makes poetic connections between seemingly distant societal codes. The artist’s works often address that which has slipped through the cracks of cultural memory, whether accidentally or not. Heavily contextualised in research, Jones presents the subject matters on screen or paper, created through experimentation with film and photography as artistic mediums. In that way, his practice attests to the role of the Artist as a social and critical commentator whose works are as real as the subject they tackle.