In the studio: Jilaine Jones
On the occasion of her current solo exhibition at Super Super Markt, we spoke to New Haven-based sculptor Jilaine Jones about her studio rituals, her materials of choice, and how ancient bas-relief continues to shape her thinking. From the quiet discipline of her morning studio routine to her deep engagement with mass, weight, and material, Jones reflects on a teenage encounter with Mondrian paintings — and why a Roman bas-relief captures something essential about how she works and what she believes in.
SSM: Where do you feel most at home?
JJ: At home, in the studio, at the edge of the Atlantic ocean.
SSM: Do you remember the first artwork that left an impression on you?
JJ: No. I took in a lot of art in my context as a young person, but I remember my first conscious effort to understand what I was seeing was with Mondrian, based on an awe for the paintings at MOMA in NY, when I was a teenager.
SSM: What is your favourite museum to visit?
JJ: I go to the Met in NY every few weeks for my own ideas and teach through it, but favorite: two combined would be great: the Victoria and Albert in London, the Musée du quai Branly in Paris.
SSM: Does every day in the studio start the same?
JJ: Yes, the studio habit, especially in the quiet and sharpness of the morning, assures me – repetition as a temporal experience – of the solidity of continuous reconsideration. In the morning I have the most energy and will make the possibilities ready for the day, often get the labor done, for what is needed in the project.
SSM: What are the 5 most essential items in your studio?
JJ: Welder. Torch. Vise. Buckets. Spring Clamps.
SSM: When starting a new work, what usually comes first – the concept, the material, or something else?
JJ: The concept – being structural/spatial (not a concept to be illustrated) and logistics: how to support the initial elements – setting up levels/props.
SSM: What materials are you most drawn to right now and how do they influence the ideas you explore?
JJ: Really I am as I always have been, moved and dependent on the differences between the mass, weight, and malleability of clay (then transferred into plaster, concrete, bronze); the spatial intensity of steel; and the planar wall-sourced often from the experience of functional wood or cardboard.
SSM: How do you know when a sculpture is finished – do you have a clear endpoint in mind, or is it more of a feeling?
JJ: I definitely don’t have a clear endpoint preconceived, accept as that: clarity, from what evolves and then needs to reach a pitch, an intensity… and it needs to push forward the ideas of the project.
SSM: Looking at your current work debuted at the gallery last month, what feels new or different for you compared to earlier pieces?
JJ: The new works in the exhibition are part of a recent idea about how small sculpture might convey a vast or far view; or an almost handheld object that could contain or release the experience of difference between close and deep space.
📸 Jilaine Jones, Installation view, Super Super Markt, Berlin, 2026
SSM: Is there an artwork from art history that best describes your personality?
JJ: I recently saw a particular large Roman bas-relief (2nd century). I look at a lot of bas relief so this was usual, but this one was intensely moving and motivating for me in its ideas. It has three vertical figures in it, two on each side and the central one is the focal point: a youthful image of a god who is slaying a bull as a ritual for renewal, with a wide flow of blood fertilizing the earth. There are small animals in positions within a very topographical rectangle. It is a place, a landscape and it feels equally to be made up of figures, animals, topography.
If we are most moved by what is like us, I am not sure – but if so, this relief believes in the composite of these factors… not the human figure alone. The action and concentration happen through the interdependence of them. There is an intrinsic geometric organization of a scene which feels organic: we feel each part has a dynamic role and affect because of its location in the rectangle. Below the center horizontal the young hero and the bull are locked together, I was – in its real presence – riveted and moved with ideas for sculpture in the way the fusion and diagonal of the figure and bull’s leg have this physical presence, protected and free there, but of course due to the entire scene of elements. I depend on what is around me as an artist and believe what I am working to communicate is ultimately a deeply shared experience of the phenomena and vitality in our world, I am indebted to it, it is the source.
