This series of large-scale photographs was commissioned by Bloomberg SPACE for the exhibition ‘Within: New Photographic Portraits’. The exhibition questioned the specificity of the photographic portrait and how we engage with the subject of the portrait. Jones chose the artist’s model as her subject. She photographed on location in the life room, drawing studio, in the subject’s bedroom, and in the more indeterminate space of the photographic studio. As well as testing the notion of a portrait extending over time, the photographs reconfigured the natural and the poised, the observed and the observer. This close study of the triangulations between the artist, sitter and viewer extended Jones’ long-term research into spatial and subject relations within photography.
This exhibition was accompanied by a publication (2009) with an introduction by Bloomberg Space curators Sacha Craddock and Graham Gussin as well as an essay by Martin Herbert.
The commissioned work Drawing Studio (I) was shown alongside Delacroix’s The Death of Sardanapalus (1827) in the group exhibition ‘Seduced By Art’ at The National Gallery, London, CaixaForum, Barcelona and Madrid (2012–13). Works from this commission were also shown in group exhibitions including: ‘Peeping Tom’, curated by Keith Coventry at Vegas Gallery, London (2010) and Kunsthale der Amerfoot, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2011). Jones gave a workshop related to her research titled ‘Locating the Portraits’ at Fondazione Fotografia, an international workshop programme at Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, Italy (2010).
As a result of her reputation with the gallery, Jones was on the selection panel for The Bloomberg New Contemporaries (2011) with Pablo Bronstein and Michael Raedecker.