Fay Jones

T.S. Eliot once said that good poetry communicates before it is understood. The same can be said about Seattle artist Fay Jones's paintings. Even before we sort them out logically, the images pass along a message that can be at once funny, profound, and a little chilling. During the 30 years she has been exhibiting on the West Coast, Jones has become one of the region's most esteemed artists. With their beauty and insight, her paintings have the rare ability to satisfy sophisticated curators and collectors, and still charm the general public. Jones's work is especially appreciated by the most discerning audience of all: other artists. Rife with signs and pregnant with ambiguity, chanting and rhyming and divining like 21st-century Sibyls, Fay's paintings can induce a state of poetry in anyone who sees them.