In the serenity of the breathtaking Ojai valley, Cassandra C. Jones works in the solitude of a studio that stands next to her childhood home. “This,” she says, gesturing to the space around her, “is a residency.” Although her entire family still lives next door, she says, “Nobody bugs me. There’s nothing to do,” she adds, laughing. “I can stay in my studio for hours on end and there’s no distraction.”

Highly labor-intensive, Jones’ work features painstakingly intricate compositions and still-frame animations, all constructed with elements from found photographs. Her installation at PULSE New York 2006 with the Nathan Larramendy Gallery, entitled Good Cheer, consisted of a room that appeared to be traditionally decorated. Wallpaper featuring colorful medallions covered the walls above a white chair rail, below which the paneled wainscoting was painted robin’s egg blue. On closer inspection, however, these medallions on the wallpaper were revealed to be dozens of digitally collaged images of young cheerleaders performing jumps, kicks, and splits, their short skirts and ponytails flying.

A self-described sufferer of “Google-mania,” Jones sifts through hundreds of thousands of photographs posted online in image banks or on auction sites. These images are the palette from which her work is composed. Though she received her BFA from California College of the Arts with an emphasis on photography and glass blowing, eventually Jones concluded that “there’s enough [photography] already out there.” However, she was struck by the pervasive deployment of certain aesthetic rules in the sea of snapshots she observed online.

Capitalizing on the similarities inherent in vernacular photography—or what she calls “innate aesthetics”—Jones embarked upon an ambitious project of “re-animation.” From 1,391 still photographs of sunsets around the world, Jones made Eventide, a video that details the arc of the setting sun through a rapid progression of still photographs. The recently completed Wax and Wane follows the path of the moon through the night sky while simultaneously mapping its progressive phases. Jones notes that in her search for images to complete the cycle, she discovered many more depictions of the wax of the moon than the wane. Jones attributes this discrepancy to the fact that the man in the moon is only visible in the waxing moon. She explains, “That’s what we’ve all been trained to look for and to find beautiful. The man in the moon is the Kodak moment.”

Jones’ second series of wallpaper, Rara Avis, also utilizes elements from found photographs. The densely packed, bright pink flowers blooming on a white background are constructed entirely from snapshots of flamingos. “The reason I chose the flamingos was that the most common snapshot I found of the flamingo was that lawn ornament shape, even when the pictures were of a live bird. So, it was interesting to me how snapshot photography was being influenced by kitsch. That lawn ornament look is the shot to get; for all these photographers that’s the most beautiful image of the flamingo. It’s like nature reflecting the man-made thing which reflects nature, and I’m just doing it back again.”

That Jones refers to her still-frame animations as “re-animations” is apt, though in truth, her work is full of the vivid and unexpected turns that define the animation of real life. As Jones says, “If you find enough photos you can recreate life with them.” Though she is aware of the cynicism that could be inferred from the reuse of such familiar visual tropes, Jones’ work instead celebrates these similarities for their ability to reveal a common human pursuit of beauty that does not yield to established boundaries.

"Rara Avis, Wallpaper #2" (detail), 2007

Cassandra C. Jones’ most recent show, “Photos Taken,” was on view from December 15, 2007 – January 31, 2008 at Nathan Larramendy Gallery, 107 South Signal Street, Ojai, CA. (805) 646-2750 www.larramendygallery.com