Art Exhibition by Peyton Espley-Jones, A modern take on medieval art
Peyton Espley-Jones standing beside her entrance piece at Café Med.
La Cathédrale Saint Sauveur, 2024, oil on canvas, 61 x 50 cm
Photo Credit: LaPaula Parker
I had the pleasure of interviewing Peyton Espley-Jones and getting some insight on her exhibition at Café Med as well as her life and career which I found incredibly interesting and relevant to any students considering the field of art. Peyton is a second-year Master of Fine Arts student here at ACM. She grew up in southern California and did her bachelor’s at the University of Texas in Austin where she majored in psychology and art history.
On the left: Campiello Barbaro, Venezia, 2024, oil on canvas, 33 x 24 cm
On the right: Lamentation (study of Michelangelo), 2024, oil on cardboard, 40 x 29 cm
Photo Credit: Prof. Ayman Khoury
Her passion for art grew in her junior year when she did a semester abroad in Aix-en-Provence with IAU, working in the Marchutz Core Art program. It was Peyton’s experience in that program that pushed her to pursue art. Arriving back at her home university she decided to make art history her second major. She is driven and curious about the world of art. While in her undergrad Peyton interned for the Blanton Museum of Art, the Women & Their Work Art Gallery, and the Harry Ransom Center. She also has experience working as a studio assistant for artist Pierce Meehan in California.
Students enjoying their time at Café Med amongst Peyton’s exhibition.
Photo Credit: Peyton Espley-Jones
From Texas she made the jump to France and completed a Master of Art History here at ACM. Her master’s thesis focused on the wounded body in medieval art. She was fascinated by how medieval people believed they would gain protection from the gory depictions of saints like the pierced San Sebastian and the wounded depiction of Jesus as the Man of Sorrows. And it is a similar theme, of finding peace in the grotesque, that has followed Peyton into her art today.
On the Left: Stay Down (Portrait II), 2024, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm
On the Right: Watch Your Mouth (Portrait I), 2024, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm
Photo Credit: Peyton Espley-Jones
The Café Med exhibition is an exploration of Peyton’s range as an artist and how she has challenged herself. She has displayed a culmination of her talents, from architecture and landscape to portraiture. “As artists we feel the need to find our style, but everyone evolves. I learned that from William Ruller.” Professor Ruller is an artist and art professor here at Marchutz. “It’s scary to try new things,” but Peyton doesn’t want to place herself in a box. Her work takes inspiration from artist Jenny Saville’s portraits, conceptual artist Maria Abramovic’s work on gender, and Michelangelo’s The Lamentation. A diverse combination that pulls from her interests in feminism, the depiction of suffering in art, and spirituality. She wants to take medieval concepts and make them modern. Using the grotesque as a tool of expression in which people can connect to. She likes to juxtapose the heavier themes within her work with peaceful natural scenes to balance the exhibition. As an art history master’s student I could see the development of her palette as a natural progression into the deeper medieval tones and though she explores many subjects in her work her palette and impressionistic style gives the exhibition unity.
Venetian Haze, 2024, oil on canvas, 24 x 33 cm
Photo Credit: Prof. Ayman Khoury
Peyton’s Café Med exhibition is open until this Friday November 22nd! Be sure to take a look and keep your eye out for her final Master’s exhibition in May 2025.
If you would like to get in contact with Peyton or see more of her work she has provided her email and instagram.
Email: peytonej@gmail.com
Instagram: @peyton_ej