Jon Osborne and Daniel White

November is going to be an exciting month in our Museum Gallery as we welcome two artists, Daniel White and Jon Osborne, into the space! Focusing on their portraiture work, this show aims to create a conversation surrounding their different styles, inspirations, and techniques while reconciling these contemporary portraits with what society has solidified as the “traditional” rendering of a portrait.

Jon Osborne:
Jon Osborne is a self-taught Contemporary Artist in Birmingham, AL who works mainly in acrylics. Jon holds an Associates degree in Graphic Communications from Trenholm State Technical College and has recently started creating art full time which has been his passion since early childhood. The principal themes of Jon's work are unity, awareness, and identity. He combines these elements to explore issues surrounding the ideas of understanding human experience and interconnection. Jon uses his unique techniques of storytelling, psychology, theory, and meditation to illustrate his view of the uncontrollable world around us while seeing the beauty in it. Jon's style of work has been described as 'bold' and ' intriguing', while using symbolism, hidden words and thought-provoking inspirations to bring awareness of our perceptions.

Daniel White:
Daniel White is the current Museum Director at the Paul R. Jones Gallery in Tuscaloosa, AL. His work is figurative painting that explores the realm of personal narratives and the formal principles of painting. The aim is to create a formal painting using informal subject matter. Often, Daniel uses bodies of water as the backdrops in the painting, which is a familiar scene from his childhood. Daniel says, “I paint to understand the world around me, to connect with art history, to connect with others. In my recent work I have focused mainly on the figures in my painting, but it goes back and forth between figures and narrative scenes.”