PUERTO VALLARTA.- NYC architect David Jones’s exhibition, Line + Color, opened at the Arte Vallarta Museo, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on February 1, 2025, with the artist in attendance. The exhibit takes a 21st century look at the 20th century DeStijl Movement, a movement that began largely in response to the horrors of World War I and the wish to remake a fresh society in its aftermath by two pioneering abstract artists, Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg. The term DeStijl, in Dutch, simply means “the style.” DeStijl looked at art as a means of social and spiritual redemption. It embraced a utopian vision of art and its transformative potential. Its adherents believed in expressing the artists' search "for the universal.” In doing so, it created an austere language, a visual language, consisting of precisely rendered geometric forms: Usually straight lines, squares, and rectangles, as well as the use of primary colors. These 20th century artists believed they’d created a language that would reveal the laws that governed the harmony of the world.

David Jones (American, b. 1948) has always focused on and worked in the field of architecture all of his personal, academic, and professional life. First studying at Auburn University for undergraduate studies in this field, he received both recognition and awards including a fellowship for European travel. Jones’s work gained the attention of and an offer for employment from noted architect, Paul Rudolph, who served as the chair of Yale University's Department of Architecture for six years. He pursued his graduate studies in architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and upon receiving his master’s degree, resumed his professional career in the office of Richard Peters, the former Chairman of the Department of Architecture at Berkeley, in San Francisco. Later, as an Assistant Professor of Architecture, he expanded his academic career at several universities including, Oklahoma State University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Paris, teaching both undergraduate and graduate design.

After nearly a decade of teaching, he returned to NYC and resumed a full time professional design practice. His professional work, both as a solo practitioner and in association with others, would include both residential and commercial architectural projects, as well as landscape and furniture design and manufacturing. His project locations varied, located in numerous states throughout the US and in Mexico. Jones began his painting career late, receiving his first commission for art in 2010. His architectural background is evident with the precision of line and color used in his work. His two and three dimensional works expand on the concepts of rationalism in art, which emphasizes that the mind, not the senses, including one’s irrational passions and emotions, distract man’s view of the whole when experiencing anything. Using a highly mathematical perspective, Jones’s 21st century approach to this classic art form works to show that the whole must be evaluated and studied on a purely intellectual level since only reason, the mind, can understand something objectively. One’s emotions, faith, and the other empirical beliefs cause us to misjudge and to become less analytical when seeing anything in its entirety: This exhibit shows line and color as interchangeable as positive and negative space at the same time.

Other works would follow and are in private collections in both the United States and Mexico. He moved to Puerto Vallarta in 2013, where he continues to live and work. The exhibition, David Jones: Line + Color, runs through June 22, 2025 at Arte Vallarta Museo in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.