Joseph Jones has saved 50,000 images of cats

For Joseph Jones’ new show at Workplace gallery, Harriet Lloyd-Smith speaks to the artist about his floral and feline love affair

“I like the paintings to feel like you are looking through a window.” There’s a tender charm and a subtle sense of nostalgia in Joseph Jones’ work. Cats and flowers are the primary subjects of his small-scale paintings, which are pieced together from a trove of found images. Jones’ work is currently part of Workplace gallery’s ‘Focus’ series, online and in their London viewing room. In this interview, originally published by the gallery, Harriet Lloyd-Smith speaks to Jones about immortalising obsessions and his floral and feline love affair.

When we met, we bonded quickly over the fact that we both paint cats. You don’t actually meet many people in the art world who do—and certainly not as captivatingly as you do. I think we all remember our first. Tell me about the first cat you painted.

That’s a good question. The first cat I painted was our family cat, Pebbles. I was probably five or six years old. As I got older, I became more interested in pictures of cats I found in books at school—all kinds of cats: tigers, lions, leopards.

There’s a very long history of domestic animal portraiture. Some examples are beautiful, while others—particularly from the medieval period—border on satire. I think there needs to be some level of obsession to immortalise anything in paint. Why cats for you? Is it their form, their demeanour, their symbolism?

I suppose it’s primarily their form and demeanour. But also the strange blend of familiarity and unfamiliarity. You never really know what cats are thinking—they don’t give much away.

My real fascination lies in how we connect with cats emotionally and culturally, especially in an era where we can choose to be constantly surrounded by them, both in reality and virtually.

Who and what are your paintings based on? Are they specific subjects or are they a composite of sources?

I’m sent lots of images of cats and flowers—by friends and by people I’ve never met.

Many of the images might be seen as overly sentimental or a bit kitsch, but they can also be seen as traces of care and attention. These are the kinds of images people take and share every day, and that says something deeply human. I rarely paint from a single photo. Instead, I build composite images—taking elements from different sources and piecing them together. I’ve built up a massive archive—probably 40 or 50 thousand images I’ve collected over the years from all sorts of places: social media, newspapers, books, forums… I’m constantly digging through it. It’s a bit chaotic, but I like that.

In recent exhibitions at Workplace in London and Ehrlich Steinberg in L.A., I’ve aimed for the paintings to feel familiar but not specific—something like a dream or a memory. I’m interested in the tension between reality and imagination, between the personal and the universal.

Images of both flowers and cats are entrenched in the history of painting and are also omnipresent online. How do you handle this tension between old and new, and manage to capture something extraordinary amid the overwhelming ubiquity of these subjects?

I’ve been lecturing in art history and philosophy for the past 15 years, with a particular interest in images. That way of thinking naturally influences how I approach painting. One concept I return to often is indexicality—the idea that an image can both reveal and obscure what it represents. So, even though these are paintings of cats or flowers, they’re also meditations on looking—on caring about something enough to try to preserve it in an image.

You work on a small scale, but the detail in your paintings is meticulous. There’s a weight to their forms and a majesty in the use of light that feels beyond photorealism—more like spiritual realism, if that can apply to felines. How long does each painting take? Are there specific techniques you use to achieve this effect?

Yes, I tend to work small and very precisely. I think that scale encourages people to slow down and really look. I spend a lot of time getting the composition and scale right—it’s probably what takes me the longest. Sometimes I’ll include something subtle that throws off the eye slightly or adds another layer of meaning or illusion.

It’s hard to say exactly how long each painting takes—probably about a week, allowing for drying time between layers. I paint on thick linen, which I prime with clear acrylic so the weave stays visible. That texture is important—it prevents the image from becoming too slick or photographic. I also sand the surface in stages, which gives the work a kind of print-like quality. There’s always a push and pull between the detail in the painting and the flatness of the surface.

Your other muses are flowers. Like the cats, you paint them in isolation, allowing us to spend time with each one. Tell me why you keep returning to flowers.

Yes, I’ve always painted flowers—probably even more than cats. Like cats, I think there’s a kind of quiet compassion or care in images of flowers. They can also act as a way of thinking about how we live in the natural world now—how we stop time. In a way, images of cats and flowers reflect our relationship to the world around us.

So while the flower paintings might appear soft or delicate, they’re also asking questions about how we see, and what we value.

Information

Joseph Jones’ ‘Focus’ exhibition is on view until 28th June.

His work is also on view at Workplace during London Gallery Weekend from 6th - 8th June.