Painting the Town: Wayson R. Jones, Leon Berkowitz, and Trevor Young Demonstrate the Depth of Local Art
From abstraction to realism, and in two and three dimensions, these two gallery exhibits spotlight some of D.C.’s most impressive painters.
by Louis Jacobson for Washington City Paper
April 15, 2025
Not only is Washington blessed with spring weather right now, but also a pair of galleries displaying the work by some of the city’s most notable painters: Wayson R. Jones and the late Leon Berkowitz at HEMPHILL Artworks, and Trevor Young at Addison/Ripley.
Jones’ works are inventive both in their colors and their method. For the series of works on display at HEMPHILL, Jones lays down pumice gel, mostly of the “extra coarse” variety, then uses repurposed tools to shape the drying gel into patterns that tiptoe between organic and orderly. After letting those sit for a few weeks, he uses Flashe, a vinyl-based paint, to turn his surfaces into bold, candy-colored works that wrap around the frame and up into three dimensions. The result is often the texture of volcanic rock.
Blue Grit (and Red, and Orange, and...)
Color and landscape, whether actual or imagined, in the work of Leon Berkowitz, Wayson R. Jones, and many more
Mark Jenkins
April 22, 2025
WHILE LEON BERKOWITZ AND WAYSON R. JONES CAN EACH BE DESCRIBED as color field painters, their ideas of a field are rather different. Berkowitz (1911-1987) made airy paintings whose surfaces are utterly flat, yet seem to glow from some submerged light source. Jones has long made earthy pictures whose facades are chunky and heavily worked; his early work was monochromatic, but it now appears to overflow, sometimes literally, with color.