Contemporary painter Jonas Wood’s exuberantly colorful portraits: an uncanny blend of realism and abstraction

The latest book from Los Angeles-based artist Jonas Wood (born 1977) follows the style of his previous publications Sports Book and Interiors, this time taking up the subject of portraiture. Portraits compiles the many works completed over Wood’s career, done in a variety of media, and with a range of subjects and sitters, including paintings of artist friends, self-portraits, intimate familial moments in domestic interiors and the artist’s own cultural and sports heroes, from basketball players and boxers to Philip Guston and Pablo Picasso—though Wood’s esteem for these figures is beside the point, as he notes: "I don’t depict only those athletes who have meaning for me. Sometimes it is about the images being interesting, or that I like the color of the card, and sometimes it is about loving the athlete." Wood’s subjects are presented in bright light with lively color, graphic flatness and minute detail rendered impeccably.

Jonas Woods: Portraits reveals an intimate look at the life of an artist at the forefront of contemporary painting.