HAM YARD HOTEL PRESENTS AN IN CONVERSATION WITH KURT JACKSON

Ham Yard Hotel presents an In Conversation with leading British contemporary artist, Kurt Jackson. 

Curator Olivia Paterson will explore Jackson’s recent works as well as his new landmark exhibition, Cot: A Cornish Valley, which follows the most westerly valley in Cornwall from the source of its stream on exposed Penwith heathland to the coast where it enters the Atlantic Ocean. The exhibition runs until February 2018. For this exhibition, Jackson chose to focus entirely on this one small piece of Cornwall, following the stream from source to sea and noting the wildlife – the plants and animals that kept him company in his solitary wanderings.

£20 including welcome drink. The event will take place in the Drawing Room at Ham Yard Hotel.

KURT JACKSON:

A dedicated environmentalist and true polymath, Jackson’s holistic approach to his subject seamlessly blends art and politics providing a springboard to create a hugely varied body of work unconstrained by format or scale. Jackson's artistic practice ranges from his trademark visceral plein-air sessions to studio work and embraces an extensive range of materials and techniques including mixed media, large canvases, print-making and sculpture.

The son of artists, Jackson was born in Blandford, Dorset in 1961. While studying Zoology at Oxford University he spent most of his time painting and attending courses at Ruskin College of Art. On gaining his degree he travelled extensively and independently, painting wherever he went before putting down roots in Cornwall with his wife Caroline in 1984.

A dedication to and celebration of the environment is intrinsic to both his politics and his art; a holistic involvement with his subject informs his formal innovations. Jackson’s focus on the complexity, diversity and fragility of the natural world has led to artist-in-residencies on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, the Eden Project and for nearly 20 years Glastonbury Festival which has become a staple of his annual working calendar.  

Over the past thirty years Jackson has had numerous art publications released to accompany his exhibitions. Three monographs on Jackson 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 Sansom & Company published book based on his touring exhibition Place was released in 2014.

OLIVIA PATERSON: 

Olivia Paterson is the curator of Firmdale Art Walks. Paterson has a BA from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and an MA from Edinburgh University in Contemporary Art Theory. She has worked with some of Europe’s leading private collections and at blue-chip galleries such as Timothy Taylor, Hauser & Wirth and Inigo Philbrick, organising exhibitions and advising clients. Olivia has also spent time at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses and acts as an independent arts writer.