The 2025 Jones Artist Awards solo exhibition was awarded to Anat Ronen, an artist traditionally known for her public murals. In her first solo exhibition, Re:Collection, Anat gathers old photographs from the 1970s and ’80s, some from her childhood and others from strangers, and transforms them into a mural layered with paintings. A boy beams from the hood of a bright red car. A toddler stands poolside in oversized shoes. A woman, apron tied, is caught mid-task in the kitchen. A couple poses proudly in front of a car, with a child peering out from the backseat.

Since the pandemic, Anat has collected hundreds of unclaimed photographs from her childhood era, drawn to images that spark recognition. “The photos I chose might have been my family, in a remote way,” she says. “Going back is my way of trying to regain that warmth and sense of safety.”

She sources images from estate sales, online archives, and her own collection. Enlarged and scattered across the wall like photos pulled from a box, they shift between private memory and collective story. Their original meaning may be lost, but in Anat’s hands, they’re reborn.

Anat paints them as she finds them, some faded, others still vivid, especially the slides. These shifts in color and texture mirror memory itself, what stays, what slips away. The exhibition invites reflection on impermanence, the objects we keep, and the rituals of analog photography. Anat hopes viewers might see traces of their own families in these images.

Photography by Nicki Evans

Videography by Tripp Films