Jones, Tom

Tom Jones is an interdisciplinary artist who makes work about Indigenous traditions, communities, and histories. Jones is particularly interested in how American Indian people have been portrayed in the past and works to counter ethnographic portraits taken by white photographers that historically have represented native histories. In this series, Jones applies beading designs that are traditionally applied on clothing to his portraits of people in his tribe, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. The artist states: “I am interested in broadening the conversation of portraiture in mainstream art and to present a nation that is generally unseen in popular culture.”

Jones attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison (BFA, 1988), and Columbia College Chicago (MA, MFA, 2002). He has shown his works in several exhibitions, and in 2022, the Museum of Wisconsin Art presented a retrospective of his work. Jones’ works are currently included in the collections at the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC; the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI; the Nerman Museum, Overland Park, KS; and Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, MI; among others. He has been a professor of photography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 2006.