Quentin Jones has never believed in staying within a single medium. As an artist and filmmaker whose work moves fluidly between collage, film, ceramics, textiles, and design, her creative language is layered, and deeply personal. Raised between Canada and London, and shaped early on by the eclectic nature of her mother and sister, Jones developed an eye that balances the mythical with the modern — an approach that continues to define the worlds she builds today.
In this week’s SIDIA Stories, she reflects on the women who shaped her visual language, the rituals that signal it’s time to create, and the perspective motherhood brought to her work. We talk about instinct, female artists who continue to guide her thinking, and the launch of House of Quentin Jones, a creative universe where collage escapes the page and becomes something you can live with.
--
Who were the women who shaped your visual vocabulary — whether family, artists, or unexpected encounters? How do you see their influence reflected in the worlds you create now?
"Early in life my mum shaped my world of course, but the influence still runs strong in my interiors and the way I cook. She loves to balance my dad’s modernist tastes with her more mythical pieces- like her collection of antique wooden masks from around the world. My sister influences my dress-sense, in that she is more elegant and grown up in the way she dresses than me and it encourages me to be less scruffy thinking about what she would choose to wear."
"Female artists who have inspired me and continue to include Hannah Hoch, Sonia Delaunay, Marlene Dumas, Viviane Sassen, and Louise Bourgeois. It’s been quite natural that I have turned to more female artists for reference as I started my own brand, especially for the tapestries."
You work across so many mediums — collage, film, 3D animation, ceramics and textiles. Do you have different rituals or routines depending on which creative language you're speaking that day?
"Yes for sure. My non-negotiables though for any of my practises are to light a candle, or an incense stick, and play music. That immediately lets my brain know it’s time to be creative. Oh and flipping my phone face down is also crucial. When I am painting or working by hand, I put my music on extra loud. When I am trying to focus on video or animation edits I listen with headphones to get into that zone."
Your son Grey appears in your work as a deeply personal subject. How has motherhood transformed your relationship to creativity — both what you make and why you make it?
"Firstly I think despite working throughout all of my three pregnancies, and while having tiny kids, I have this feeling that I am only just coming back to my working chapter. The last ten years was a baby chapter and now I am back with my foot on the gas trying to make things happen, and shape my future. And having had my babies gave me a bit pf perspective on what is important to me, and what I am willing to push myself for. And It is this feeling that made me make the slightly insane move of starting my own brand- House of Quentin Jones. Despite only very early days, I already feel proud of what I have achieved, and what IO am making. It feels really aligned with what I value, and the sort of world I want to live in… and that is more than I can say about a lot of things I have worked on in my time."
"I feel like art can carry meaning through visual experience itself, and an instinctive, sensory engagement with it’s form."
You studied Philosophy at Cambridge before pursuing art. Were there any female philosophers or thinkers who influenced how you see the relationship between the conceptual and the visual?
"I feel like art can carry meaning through visual experience itself, and an instinctive, sensory engagement with it’s form. I think this can be quite a female approach to making and consuming work in a natural and instinctual way, rather than trying to rationalize what is happening, and feel the work is only valuable if it translates a concept. Susan Sontag articulates this well."
Is there a scent that defines your studio? Something that signals to your senses that it's time to create?
"I love very mossy smelling incense, as well as burning sandal wood or sage when I feel I need to get witchy."
House of Quentin Jones feels like a matriarchal act — creating a home, a lineage, a world. What does it mean to you to build something that carries your name forward in this way?
"Yes, I love that it feels like a matriarchal act. The brand is sensual but strange, and grounded in ritual — it’s about building a world, a home, a line of expressive forms."
"Putting my name on it felt essential because House of Quentin Jones reflects the universe I’ve been shaping for years — an aesthetic language developed while working for others, now given its own space to exist without compromise. Having my name there holds me to a certain responsibility; it ensures I remain proud of what it becomes and how it evolves."
Quentin's Ritual:
