Jon Ridge is a painter, born in Guildford, who now lives and works in London.
Ridge’s painted environments demonstrate a visual vocabulary developed over many years, that he deploys in service to his interest in the push and pull between abstraction and figuration.
It’s the nuances and nudges at the biting point of visual information that interest him, there almost as a catalyst for the viewer’s imagination, deliberately inconclusive, not as a way of shutting out the audience, quite the contrary, it’s his desire to propagate a million different ‘correct’ readings.
Ridge’s former career in graphic design and art direction within advertising—where creative work is often compromised once the client takes control - led him to seek a different kind of creative engagement. This move prompted his later studies at Chelsea College of Art (2004–2009). His background in commercial design proved valuable, bringing with it a graphic sensibility and a tendency toward reduction of form that enriched his painting. Unlike advertising, painting allowed Ridge to be utterly creatively uncompromising - a liberating experience.
Ridge regularly exhibits in group shows in London and further afield. His work is held in many private collections worldwide.
Solo show
‘The Addition Of Absence’ , Oasis Art Space, Frinton. February 2025.
Group shows
‘The Incidentals’, Bell House, Dulwich. May 2025.
‘Vice Versa’, Terrace Gallery, London, May 2025.
‘The Mirror At Night’, Vestry Street, Crosslane Projects, London.
April-June 2025.
‘Being Still’, The Coincidence Gallery, London. March 2025.
‘Miniatures Challenge’, Canal Boat Contemporary, London. November 2024.
‘Dancing About Architecture’, Hypha Studios, Stratford, London, August 2024.
‘It Rose And It Fell’, Terrace Gallery, London, May 2024.
‘Le Petit Salon’, The Tagli, Kensington, London, March 2024.
‘Orpheus Melting’, The Art Space, Kingston, Jan 2024.
‘Material Base’, Thamesmead Texas, Thamesmead, London, Oct 2023.
‘Time Being’, Irving Contemporary, Oxford, May 2022.
