Sladers Yard
Contemporary British Art, Furniture and Craft.
Licensed Café. Live Evening Events.
Time Lines:
New work by Paul Jones and Akiko Hirai
Saturday 28 February to Sunday 12 April 2015
Press release for release February – April 2015
Time Lines brings together two artists who work in unusual ways with texture and
tone to create works of imaginative freedom and subtle beauty. This major
exhibition of Paul Jones’s latest work is the fruition of the ideas and vision he has
built up over the last fifteen years, seeking to explore and re-invent the
complexities of coastline, geology and landscape. Fascinated by the edges of
land, the moment of transition between earth, air and water and the time that is
revealed in the geology of cliffs, Paul Jones's paintings celebrate the coming
together of memory and observation in well-loved places.
Akiko Hirai makes practical ware using the Japanese tradition of allowing the clay
to show how it wants to be fired itself. Her work also allows the viewers to find out
the language of the objects in their own ways. She focuses on the interaction
between object and viewer. Her unique approach to ceramic work has had much
attention and praise and her work is in demand from commissions in England
and worldwide.
From the start she has been heralded as a unique talent. Her intensely
handmade, seemingly naive ceramic tableware has the purity of salt. Deeply
textured, glazed in soft white, matt black or natural colours, her forms are those
of workware, simple and satisfying. She chooses very rough dark clay and often
glazes it with white, which forms a veil between the rough forms underneath and
the smooth calm of the exterior.
Paul Jones’s technique of burning and stressing his paint creates exceptional
textures and brings his understanding of ceramic into the painting process. He
puts down layers of colour and then sets light to the acrylic paint. He is then able
to control and move it around to achieve the finish he wants. This may be rough
and rock-like or, if he allows the paint to blister and burst, it reveals the colours
underneath. Once the paint is dry he can cut into it with sandpaper or continue to
‘Paul Jones is at his best as an artist when he looks underneath the surface of
place; or down onto it as if in a kind of static flight. Jones will magnify a gleaming
micaceous chip into a landscape of its own; or hover alongside a cliff face and
find abstract pattern from massive rock formations. This is an art respectful of the
geography of remarkable places, often at the edge of cliff and sea, windswept in
its mood. Its place is within a British neo-romantic tradition of painting, as its best
when it hovers between representation and abstraction.’ Professor Simon Olding,
University College for the Creative Arts, Farnham.
Paul Jones was a scholarship student at Bath Academy of Art, Corsham at a
time when Adrian Heath, Robyn Denny and Howard Hodgkin were his tutors.
After achieving his NDD he taught Art and Ceramics at Bournville Grammar
School and in 1969 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 1979 he
relocated to Dorset. The move to Dorset provided his first encounter with the
chalk downlands and coastline that continue to inspire much of his work. His first
major exhibition was in 1979 since when he has continued to exhibit nationally.
His work is held in both private and corporate collections including UNESCO,
Longleat House, Dorset County Council, 3Ms and Eldridge Pope. He and his wife
Julie have a son Matthew, a daughter Sophie and a grandson. His second book,
Overview brings together many of his paintings, drawings and poetry in a
comprehensive overview of the last four decades.
If you would like more information about Paul Jones or Akiko Hirai please contact
Sladers Yard on 01308 459511 or email gallery@sladersyard.co.uk.
Sladers Yard West Bay Bridport Dorset DT6 4EL t: 01308 459511
www.sladersyard.co.uk Open: Monday to Saturday 10am – 4pm. Sundays Café
opens 10am, Gallery opens 12 – 4pm.