The Mount Olive studio of visual artist Cent Jones showcases her work, which is focused on representing people of color. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
‘Color of Asia, by Cent Jones, has a textured quality resulting from the artist’s application of caulk to her canvas prior to painting. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
A mixture of tissue paper, paint, and glue gives texture to the skin, hair, and facial features of the two young men in Cent Jones’ work of art entitled ‘Brothers.’ (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Cent Jones compares a photo on her phone to the painting she produced from it. The photo shows Jones’ siblings and her cousin; it was taken before she was born. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Singer/songwriter Mali Music is captured in this portrait by artist Cent Jones. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Visual artist Cent Jones shows off her portrait of David Ruffin, a singer with The Temptations. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
In this acrylic painting of several deceased family members, Cent Jones has portrayed ‘my parents, HIS majesty, my grandmother and my nephew.’ (Cent Jones|Courtesy photo)
Artist Cent Jones specializes in portraiture. Some portraits represent people that exist only in her imagination, while others are of real people, like this one of rapper Biggie Smalls. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
In addition to painting, Mount Olive artist Cent Jones also sculpts. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
‘Life is Love’ is a joyous work of art, created by Cent Jones. Jones describes the creation of this work as being effortless, saying she ‘threw some acrylic paint’ on a piece of poster board found in a church storage area. (Kathy Grant Westbrook|mountolivetribune.com)
Most adults can look back on their life and remember a special present they received as a child — maybe a bike, a baseball glove or a video game. Or a briefcase. Wait — what?
“My dad bought me a briefcase when I was in the fifth grade,” recalls Mount Olive native Cent Jones, relishing the childhood memory. “They tease me all the time about it now. I carried that briefcase around all the time, and it had just basic pencils, markers, and everything. He did that because I was drawing on my school paper. I would always say, ‘I need more paper for school,’ and he was like, ‘I just bought you tablets, what’s going on?’”
Jones was a quiet kid who enjoyed filling her time with sketching — “As my granny says, ‘I was born an artist.’” — and the briefcase ensured that her art supplies were never far from her side.
At 53, and with her two children now grown, Jones has reached a point in her life where she’s more than ready to pursue a career as a visual artist. “I’m hoping that it would take place, like, tomorrow,” she says.
Throughout high school, Jones filled her schedule with as many art classes as possible and went on to study commercial art and advertising design, “which did me no good,” she recalls. She then volunteered to teach art at a Mount Olive youth center and ended up staying on; she still serves as a director at the center, her art dreams having been shelved for years. “In this [rural] area, we were always told that old adage, ‘You can’t make it here as an artist.’ So, I kinda threw that on the back burner,” she says.
Trying to make it as an artist in smalltown North Carolina is challenge enough, but add to it the fact that Jones is a Black woman and it becomes even more so. As she states on her website, “People of color have consistently been excluded from print, television, and the world of Art.”
Further, she states that her work celebrates “Black culture and afro-centric experiences. Designing pieces of work that highlight people of color is the driving source of my artistic passion.”
So, after many years of leaving her dreams on the back burner, how did she decide to reignite them? In 2018, a couple of friends encouraged her to do what many other artists were doing: Post on social media. She followed their advice and posted a sample of her work on Instagram, where it got a lot of likes, thus giving her a boost of confidence.
In 2019, she boldly walked into the Arts Council of Wayne County in Goldsboro, “and I said, ‘Hey, what do you do about getting an art show or something like that going on?’” The Council’s director asked to see samples of Jones’ work, and it wasn’t long before she was invited to do a show.
“I was floored,” Jones remembers. “I was like, really? I knew nothing about having an art show. I’d never had one.”
The show was a success, despite being held during the height of the Covid crisis. “I was flabbergasted,” Jones says. “I could not believe it. Yeah, masks and everything, people came. I wasn’t expecting anyone to show because I’m fairly new to the art scene. The only people who knew me were my family and friends. They posted it and we put it out there and folks came in and we had a blast. I think I sold everything in that show, maybe, with the exception of two or three pieces.
“I still don’t believe it to this day. I’m like, that really happened?”
That experience led to a couple more shows, including one at Gold City House of Music, where her work was showcased for two or three months. She also contributed pieces to two events — the grand opening of the Arts Council’s new facility in Goldsboro and a showing of works by Ruth Carter (costume designer for the Black Panther movies) at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Jones says those pieces all sold, noting, “Again, I’m just amazed. I can’t believe that what’s happening is taking place.”
Within that whirl of activity, Jones still found time to teach art to youth for two years through the North Carolina Museum of Art AIM (Artist Innovation Mentorship) Program and to do commission work.
When first re-entering the art scene, Jones concentrated mostly on sketching with charcoal or graphite. Now, though, she also paints, sculpts, and works in mixed media. “I try to get in all mediums,” she explains. “I like to try everything.”
Numerous examples of her work are on display in her studio in the Arts Council of Wayne County’s Mount Olive location at First Baptist Church. One particularly striking piece, entitled “Brothers,” depicts two young men whose skin, hair, and facial features Jones has textured using a technique of mixing together tissue paper, glue, and paint and then adhering the mixture to the canvas. “If my mama were here, she’d say, ‘Girl, stop wasting that toilet paper,’” Jones laughingly says. She used this same technique to help texture the hair on two sculpted busts.
In depicting the face of an Asian woman, entitled “Color of Asia,” Jones experimented with another means of adding texture: In this instance, she applied caulk to the canvas, then painted it.
Her studio is filled with portraits. “I think faces tell so many stories,” she says. “I tried to do landscapes, a little bit of abstract, but it just didn’t drive me as much as portraiture does.”
Some of her portraits represent people that exist only in her imagination, while others are of real people, like rapper Biggie Smalls, singer/songwriter Mali Music, and singer with The Temptations, David Ruffin.
And then there’s the portrait that appears to be effortless, almost accidental. It was created, Jones says, when she “threw some acrylic paint” on a piece of poster board found in a storage area of the church. Captioned “Life is Love,” it portrays two young people — one Black, one White — their faces lit up in expressions of pure joy. It’s a joy that is matched in the sound of Jones’ voice when she talks about her art. It’s no wonder this particular portrait came about so easily.
Jones is active on social media. Look for Cent Jones on Facebook or centjones_art on Instagram to see videos of her working. A gallery of her work is available on her website: www.centjonesart.com.
