Artists Jeromyah Jones and Jerome Jones Jr. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Jerome and Jeromyah Jones are father and son, but they project the quietly intense demeanor of twins. They finish each other’s sentences, yet each gives space for the other’s voice to be heard. Even their cadence sounds similar; a rhyming rhythm often sluices through their speech. This synergy serves the Jones men well; it is the base of their shared identity as visual artists.
“I’ve been drawing since I was about 3 years old,” says Jerome, 59, who was born in Norfolk but has lived in Richmond since his elementary school days.
His son Jeromyah, 28, nods. “[That was the] same age I started drawing. ... But true creative energy came to me naturally, because I was surrounded by art,” he says, gesturing toward his father, “from my birth.”
Both men work primarily as painters, their style a unique form of contemporary visual art. Their oil paintings saturate canvases with vivid colors, strong lines and hand-lettered text. Their latest collection of works, entitled “Prophecy Makes History,” is on view through Oct. 31 at The Gallery at Main Street Station and includes 37 original oil-on-canvas paintings, prints and drawings by the Joneses.
Old and new works are on display, they say, including a 2016 piece by Jeromyah entitled “Lucy.” In this painting, the feminine name references and depicts two beings: One is the 3.2 million-year-old, ancient human ancestor commonly referred to as Lucy, found in Ethiopia in 1974. The other Lucy is a girl Jeromyah met while speaking at a local youth basketball camp.
“This young girl came up to me after I did one of my spoken word-style raps, which I entwine into my art, and she asked, ‘Can you do a rap for me?’ She had such a boldness.” The connection between the two Lucys, says Jeromyah, is cyclical and spans millennia.
“In a sense, Lucy is the mother of us all, and she represents Africa, the mother continent,” explains Jeromyah. As “mother” Lucy’s incomplete, fossilized skeleton hovers in the background, “... her daughter, young Lucy, is alive here in today’s Richmond,” running a race with determination and pride as she represents the continuing legacy of her forbears.
Lines of persimmon-toned text stenciled onto the painting read:
The life of Lucy is her people’s reward,
connecting universal legend to Jackson Ward,
mother and daughter on one accord.
Paintings from Jerome's series depicting African-American changemakers (Photo by Jay Paul)
Another section of the exhibition spotlights Jerome’s series of vibrantly colored portraits depicting legendary black changemakers. Many of the likenesses bear the signature of the subject or those of their relatives. There’s educator and civil and women’s rights activist Dorothy Height, born in Richmond in 1912, sitting in a regal purple suit and matching hat. Alex Haley, journalist and author of “Roots” and “The Autobiography of Malcom X,” gazes out at the viewer from a darkened canvas, one corner of cerulean blue marked with Haley’s signature, left in October 1980.
Jerome smiles when he points to the next portrait of a bespectacled elderly man, the letters W-Y-A-T-T painted in a vertical procession down the left side. “That one is Wyatt Tee Walker,” he says. “This painting has a strange, special story.”
Wyatt Tee Walker Jr.’s northbound train had just arrived in Richmond; he was dashing out of Main Street Station when nature called.
“For some reason, the lady at the help desk directed me to the restroom down the hall, instead of the one directly behind me,” he says. “That’s how I ended up walking past the gallery. As soon as I went in and looked at the paintings, I was blown away to see my father’s face staring at me.”
Walker is the son of Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker Sr., a legendary civil rights activist and a confidant and co-strategist of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the 1950s, Walker was pastor of Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg and organized civil rights campaigns in that area. Walker lived and worked in Harlem, New York, for the next four decades; he spent his final years in Virginia, where he died in January. The painting of his father is a “remarkably creative” way to honor his legacy, Walker says.
“The images are beautiful, undoubtedly, but I really love the acronym [using] my dad’s name,” says the younger Walker. Jones’ painted acronym labels Walker a “Truth Teacher,” referencing the activist’s roles as leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a co-organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, where MLK delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. Small scripture references edge various letters, a spiritual element present in almost all of Jerome’s work. In the coming weeks, Walker Jr. plans to give prints of the painting to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, whom he says admired his father. Cuomo included Walker in an photo exhibition honoring outstanding African-Americans in the New York State Capitol building in February.
Jerome presents Theresa Ann Walker with a print of the portrait he painted of her husband, legendary civil rights activist Wyatt Tee Walker. (Photo courtesy Wyatt Tee Walker Jr.)
Viewing the artwork feels “surreal” to Theresa Ann Walker. “I was familiar with Mr. Jones’ work,” says Mrs. Walker, who was herself a powerhouse activist during her nearly 70-year marriage to Wyatt, risking her life and liberty as a Freedom Rider in 1960s Mississippi, “but to see my husband and what he stood for depicted like this is just breathtaking, just beautiful.” Last week, Jerome brought a print of the painting to the Walker home in Chester, where he met Mrs. Walker and signed his work before giving it to her and the family. New items from her husband’s personal collection of manuscripts, photos and audio clips may soon be on view at the University of Richmond. The Walkers say the whole family plans to visit the Main Street Station gallery together soon to experience the original painting together. “His talent is God-given,” Mrs. Walker says of Jerome.
He agrees. “I’ve always known I had a gift; what made a difference is knowing the giver of the gift,” he says. His art reflects his own deep spiritual beliefs and relationship with, as he says, “Yah,” a Hebrew name of God. “All of us have gifts, but all of us have a purpose. We must use our gifts to uplift others.” Jerome drove this point home recently for students in his visual arts class, part of the Richmond parks and recreation department’s Youth STEAM Development Program (formerly the ARTS Institute), with a teaching based on tomatoes.
“I had them look at a still-life painting I did of a tomato, called ‘Crossover Appeal,’ ” says Jerome. “I asked, is a tomato a vegetable or a fruit?’ ” A student correctly answered that it was a fruit, and Jerome recalls his reply: “Very good. But the dictionary says a tomato is a fruit that is used as a vegetable. It has crossover appeal, and that’s how we must be as artists. I’m teaching these young people that our work as artists should be able to reach people who don’t look like us, who don’t think like us and who aren’t ‘categorized’ like us.”
Artists who use “inspiration, information and imagination” to communicate messages with their work rank high with the Jones men, says Jerome. He says he was intentional about exposing his son to these types of artists, especially ones whose identities reflected Jeromyah’s and his own as black male creators.
“I always admired artists like John Biggers, Henry L. Tanner, Dr. Murry DePillars,” says the elder Jones. DePillars was dean of Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts for nearly 20 years, developing VCU into a world-class arts education institution. “He’s one of the reasons I went to VCU,” says Jerome, who earned a painting and printmaking degree from the school.
Jeromyah echoes, “And John Biggers was one of the reasons I went to Hampton University.” He says Biggers, a painter, muralist and art professor whose work shed light on various aspects and experiences of black Americans, inspired him then and motivates him now.
“When we say, ‘Prophecy makes history,’ we’re talking about our rich history that began before 1619,” says Jerome of the exhibition’s theme. Noting that much of what he learned about black history in his public school education started with slavery, Jerome says their exhibition shares with viewers the rich history of ancient Africa — its societies, innovations and cultural contributions to the world — and the achievements of contemporary black Americans, with the intention to inform and engage viewers.
“It’s not enough just to paint art for art’s sake,” Jerome says. “People are seeking for answers, and they’re trying to understand the world around them. Art must speak to and for the people. It may entertain, but it must enlighten.” Pieces of each artist’s work are designed to be “declarations, not decorations.”
Never miss a Sunday Story: Sign up for the newsletter, and we’ll drop a fresh read into your inbox at the start of each week. To keep up with the latest posts, search for the hashtag #SundayStory on Twitter and Facebook.
