‘I paint extreme emotions’: Rachel Jones on her riotously colourful paintings – and her obsession with mouths

Known for her colourful abstracts, the artist is getting a retrospective at the age of just 34. She talks about her love of karaoke, working on a full-length opera and how to deal with fame at a young age

Viewers may find Rachel Jones’s paintings “beautiful”, but they should be warned: the artist herself doesn’t love that word.

“In our culture, the idea of beauty sadly isn’t discussed in a critical, rich way – it’s much more reductive as a term,” says the 34 year old. “I hope that when people describe the work as beautiful, it doesn’t just stop there.” Her aim, she says, is to pull viewers in deeper, beyond the surface of the work.