Images of cats tend to serve as landing pads for emotional projection. How you interpret them says something interesting about your inner landscape. In a new exhibition at Adams and Ollman, London-born artist Joseph Jones studies the curious humanity embedded in the feline image. Building composites from his extensive archive of cat photos—the artist estimates he has 40 to 50 thousand of them—Jones’ oil and acrylic portraits feel as intimate as they are universal. His embrace of sentimentality has caught on; Jones was commissioned to make a kitten print for the A24 film Sorry, Baby (2025), and his paintings in the Portland show reveal a persistence of vision. The imagery approaches photorealism, yet maintains angelic charm.
Jones’ 2026 painting “Pink T-shirt” doesn’t focus on the figure wearing the shirt—in fact, they’re mostly cropped out of view. A cat tucked behind the figure’s tattooed arm occupies the majority of the frame. Her look leans pedigree. She could be a cat in a wet food commercial: long-haired and cottony, a heart-shaped face, blue eyes brimming with heartbreaking innocence. Those eyes, glassy and thoughtful, gaze intently upward, as though looking over the viewer’s shoulder.
The exhibition’s minimal feel, with six small-scale paintings total, creates a spaciousness that encourages close observation. At 7″x11″, “Pink T-shirt”’s size summons the viewer closer. There, we notice how Jones’ mild, delicate aesthetic extends to the surface on which he works. The corners of his canvas soften in sanded-down curves. Its sides are left untreated, exposing the raw, tactile linen beneath. Up close, the human form in the painting becomes clearer, too—their tattoo of a cartoon cat in a cupcake hat hints at attachment; they project onto the cat a sort of silly preciousness.
Each of the six paintings incorporates the color pink, and all include the color in their titles, to varying effect. “Pink Bird,” the only avian painting, is Jones’ most striking, glowy work; two flower paintings, “Pink Poppy” and “Pink Rose,” pull the least focus. (It’s hard to compete with cats and birds for attention.) Pink shades evoke various connections to intimacy: valentines, a nursery, mucous membranes. Jones seems to understand these associations, and wields the color with confidence.
Intimacy intensifies in Carolee Schneemann’s nine-minute Infinity Kisses—The Movie (2008), screening on loop alongside the exhibition. The video comprises 124 35mm photographs of the artist kissing her cat, backed by a dark ambient soundscape layered with rumbling purrs. It’s vulnerable, corporeal, and a little nauseating, like watching open-heart surgery. But the longer you sit with that discomfort, the more it might transform. Ultimately, Schneemann’s piece feels in conversation with what Jones’ “Pink T-shirt” does so honestly. Both works look at interspecies connection up close, and reflect a familiar feeling: The more fully we love a creature, the more it’s almost painful.
Joseph Jones is on view at Adams and Ollman, 418 NW 8th, through April 11, FREE, hours and more info at adamsandollman.com.
