S. Renée Jones
I've been creating images for more than 40 years. I stumbled across photography as a teenager playing with the found treasure of a cameras my father brought home after cleaning someone's basement or attic. I grew up in San Francisco's Mission District with my nine brothers and sisters raised by my single parent father. I was on the younger end, stuck between two brothers, and the older ones called us "the three little ones". This caused an unusual kind of isolation for me, from which I had to figure out how to overcome. That's where photography came in. Playing around with a camera (minus film for the longest time) allowed me to hide when I needed, be the center of everything when I wanted and pay close attention to what mattered; what told the story.
As I grew older, struggling through the reality of an absent mother, the constant penetration of racism and sexism, poverty and low self-esteem, i looked toward photography as my therapy. Robert Henri, writer of "The Art Spirit" wrote--"Art is the inevitable consequence of growth and is the manifestation of the principles of its origin". I took from this and ask myself when creating an image, What brings pleasure to my eyes, what causes my soul to connect and gather in that which surrounds me, what moves beyond mimicry, the splash of color or visual trickery, leading me to my next moment of healing.
Features and Highlights
A Life's Road—Stories from the TODCO Family
News Article: San Francisco Examiner
May 25 2023
“
For 29 years S. Renee Jones has been a tenant, volunteer, photographer and now Gallery Manager for the TODCO Group, South of Market’s community based nonprofit affordable housing community builder. This is her story.“
Two Bay Area projects cast artists as culture keepers during Covid-19
7X7
Feb 24, 2021
By SF/Arts Monthly
“
Among the Archives' collection of posters and flyers and other documents our student finds in the city's COVID -19 Time Capsule are four 100-year-old portfolios, both print and digitally produced by four specially selected artists who used their imaginations and skills to leave a record of what it was like to live during the COVID-19 crisis.
Those portfolios are being assembled right now by comic artists/illustrators Ajuan Mance and Bo Rittapa, and photographers Mabel Jimenez and S. Renee Jones. All four are participants in the COVID Command Center (CCC) Artist in Residence project. “
Sixth Street, 2010
By artist S. Renée Jones
Exhibition on Oct. 2, 2021
6th on 7th Gallery Re-Opening
Portraits of life and activity along the 6th Street corridor in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco by artist S. Renée Jones/