Blown away by Kurt Jackson’s The Thames Revisited exhibition in the Redfern Gallery in London last week.
Jackson’s work is exquisite – what Will Self refers to as “the transcendental and the haptic” in his foreword to the catalogue. Jackson’s intricate perception allows him to conjure atmosphere and mood. His mark-making in painting is exquisite – not mimetic, not realistic, not precious – but capturing a sense of place and time in a different way than can be achieved photographically.
I watched his video showing how he works out of doors. He also follows routes, recording in sketches and paintings along the way. I intend to do walking in East Anglia sketching and painting. His work inspires me from the point of view of immersing myself in the landscape and capturing the sense of place and time in my own way.
It was interesting to see how Jackson’s work is successful in both small, medium and large dimensions. In fact, my personal preference went towards his small and medium works. I’ve decided to stop worrying about canvas size in my own work – I generally prefer to work in small and medium scale.
His framing works well too – pure white shallow box canvas and white backing with the rough-edged paintings-on-paper attached to the backing paper without need of a straight edged mount. The effect was to present the paintings in their entirety much better, I thought.
More information about Kurt Jackson’s paintings can be found at: http://www.kurtjackson.com/
