E xecuted in Jonas Wood’s signature graphic and patterned style, Anthony Davis (2012) is an impressive portrait painting by the artist, a highly expressive and engaging work. While his still lifes and paintings of potted plants have earned the artist critical and popular acclaim, the artist has demonstrated a long-term interest in painting sports stars and sports imagery, as exemplified here in this painting of American professional basketball player, Anthony Davis. In an interview ith Korean Vogue in 2017, the artist was asked who his heroes were, answering: “I like a lot of basketball players, I like athletes in general. I love Roger Federer,..., I like to watch a lot of sports, I like competition, I like emotions when somebody wins and how hard it is to win, and how much they practice. I think I relate to it differently because you don’t really win prizes and awards making art, but you practice a lot to get better” (the artist quoted in “Picturing Jonas Wood - Sports”, Phaidon, November 2019, online). Further, his bright, flat style of figuration is well suited to the representation of sports motifs, with the artist commenting: “They have all these built-in components that I connect with painting, like stripes, colours, shapes and simplification” (Ibid.).

Wood grew up in Boston and graduated with a BA in Psychology in upstate New York with a minor in studio art. He then moved to Seattle to pursue his MFA in painting and drawing. Over the past decade and a half Wood has carved out his own distinctive and critically lauded aesthetic that is embedded in a rich network of art-historical reference. His painterly style is a playful yet rigorous interrogation of the traditional representational challenge of capturing three-dimensional forms on the flat picture plane; by flattening shapes and exaggerating forms, he achieves gently unsettling yet highly stimulating canvases.

喬 納斯 · 伍德創作的《安東尼·戴維斯》（2012）是一幅讓人印象深刻的肖像畫，展現出藝術家的標誌性圖像和風格樣式，散發迷人的表現力和吸引力。喬納斯·伍德主要以靜物和盆栽繪畫獲得業界及大衆贊譽，但也長期以來表露出自己對繪畫體育明星和運動題材的濃厚興趣，這幅美國職業籃球員安東尼·戴維斯的畫像就是最佳例證。伍德在2017年韓國《時尚》的訪問中被問到他的英雄偶像是誰，便回答道：「我喜歡很多籃球員，我一般很欣賞運動員。我愛費達拿，……，我喜歡看很多運動，我喜歡賽事，我喜歡人們贏了之後的感受，因爲取勝是那麽難，又經過那麽多訓練。我覺得自己產生了不一樣的連接點，因爲對做藝術而言，並不存在真正的獎項，但是也需要大量的練習來提高自己」（引述藝術家，<走近喬納斯 · 伍德——運動>，《菲頓》，2019年11月，摘錄自網絡）。他鮮艷、扁平的具象風格很適合用來表現運動主題，藝術家説道：「運動本來就有條紋、顔色、形狀和簡潔這些元素，這也正是我和繪畫相連通的部分」（來源同上）。

伍德在波士頓成長，於紐約上州取得心理學學士學位，副修工作室藝術。他移居西雅圖後，攻讀油畫及素描美術碩士課程。過去十多年來，伍德獨特的美學一直備受讚譽。他借鑑藝術史的豐富脈絡，繪畫風格盎然有趣，又不失縝密細緻。在二維圖像平面上呈現立體物像是傳統的具象藝術所面臨的挑戰，而伍德的繪畫風格就是對此進行狡黠又嚴謹的質問；他通過形狀扁平化和形式誇張化的處理，最終實現了令人略感不安但又饒有趣味的畫面。