Leading British contemporary artist Kurt Jackson explores and celebrates the diversity, role, importance
and current plight of bees and other pollinators.
High resolution images available here.
For further information, interviews please contact: Zinzi Tucker.
Email: press@kurtjackson.com | Telephone: 07876 693 311
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Kurt Jackson: Bombus terrestris. 2014. oil on wood. 15.5 x 11cm.
Kurt Jackson exhibition celebrates the importance, diversity and
Kurt Jackson: Bees (and the Odd Wasp) in My Bonnet.
Jackson Foundation, St Just, Cornwall. TR19 7LB.
25 March – 19 August 2017
Jackson: Bees (and the Odd Wasp) in My Bonnet.
This exhibition has toured from its initial prestigious opening at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (where it attracted over
100,000 visitors) to take up residence at the Jackson Foundation Gallery in Cornwall, a large new environmentally informed art space near
St Ives.
Featuring new and unseen paintings and sculpture as well as material from the touring exhibition, this body of work explores and celebrates
the diversity, role, importance and current plight of bees and other pollinators.
Acknowledging the dangers faced by British bees, Kurt Jackson has spent the past few years exploring the world of pollinators, producing a
collection of pieces that are also informed by his grounding in the sciences and his experience as a beekeeper in Cornwall.
Bees (and the Odd Wasp) in My Bonnet brings this body of work together and includes both plein air and studio pieces embracing an
extensive range of materials and techniques including mixed media, large canvases, print making, sculpture and film.
In collaboration with two charities working for the bee, Friends of the Earth, the B4 Project [Bringing Back Black Bees] - whose patrons
include Eden Project creator Sir Tim Smit and Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis CBE - as well as Cornwall Wildlife Trust the
show presents Jackson’s art alongside fascinating and informative displays of their invaluable work. Along with the latest scientific research
into the hazards facing bees, such as neonicotinoid pesticides and habitat losses, the exhibition offers a reflective and empirical view of
British bees and wasps.
“My interests in the natural history of bees and wasps goes back to my youth,” says Kurt Jackson. “ As a student reading Zoology at Oxford
University I joined an expedition to the Venezuelan Amazon and brought back half a dozen [thought to be new to science] wasp specimens
with drawings and information about their nests..”
Professor Paul Smith, director of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, says:
“This is a wonderful opportunity to view the excellent work of a contemporary artist whose art is concerned with the natural
environment. Combining Kurt Jackson’s pieces with current science chimes with ambitions to reflect different approaches to natural
history …..the interface of art, science and nature.”
Website: www.jacksonfoundationgallery.com/bees
High resolution images available here.
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Notes to editors
About Kurt Jackson
Kurt Jackson MA (Oxon) DLitt (Hon) RWA was born in 1961 in Blandford, Dorset, and graduated from St Peter’s College, Oxford with a
degree in Zoology in 1983. While there, he spent most of his time painting and attending courses at Ruskin College of Art, Oxford. On
gaining his degree he travelled extensively and independently, painting wherever he went. He travelled to the Arctic alone and hitched
across Africa with his wife, Caroline. They moved to Cornwall in 1984 where they still live and work.
A dedication to and celebration of the environment is intrinsic to both his politics and his art, and a holistic involvement with his subjects
provides the springboard for his formal innovations. Over the past thirty years Jackson has had numerous art publications released to
accompany his exhibitions. Three monographs have been published by Lund Humphries depicting his career so far; A New Genre of
Landscape painting (2010), Sketchbooks (2012) and A Kurt Jackson Bestiary (2015). A collection of his poetry And was produced in 2011.
Jackson regularly contributes to radio and television and presents environmentally informed art documentaries for the BBC.
twitter: @KurtJacksonArt
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About the Jackson Foundation
The Jackson Foundation is an exciting new gallery space created by Kurt and Caroline Jackson, based in a large ex-industrial building in
the centre of St Just in Penwith, West Cornwall.
The gallery is essentially an environmentally informed arts space – a unique Cornish foundation that consists of a large dynamic exhibition
space, working with national and locally based NGOs and charities in the environmental sector – all sustained and supported by the work of
Kurt Jackson.
With a desire to invest in the future potential of this part of the world and put their 'politics' into action Kurt and Caroline Jackson have built a
carbon neutral green build/conversion using renewables and sensitive local materials and local labour.
The Foundation is centred upon the on-going working practice of Jackson collaborating with environmental organisations and those groups
interested in the natural world as well as parts of the educational establishment. The commercial element to some of the exhibition
programming feeds into and sustains the Foundation, its aims and survival.
Kurt Jackson’s work has a national and international following and by placing the Gallery in St Just a new link in the Art Loop has been
created in Penwith: St Ives, St Just, Newlyn and Penzance - a trail of art and heritage attractions.
Please take a look inside the Jackson Foundation Gallery on a Google virtual tour.
www.jacksonfoundationgallery.com
Twitter: @JacksonFGallery
Instagram: @KurtJacksonArt
For further information, interviews or photos please contact Zinzi Tucker.
Email: press@kurtjackson.com | Telephone: 07876 693 311
Snail Mail: Jackson Foundation Gallery, North Row, St Just, Cornwall, TR19 7LB.
