'Arctic Visions' - a new exhibition at Gloucester museum
Award-winning artist, Nicholas Jones, to display his Arctic paintings at Nature in Art Museum and Art Gallery.
‘Arctic Visions: Capturing the Uncapturable’
November 7th – December 10th 2023
Nature in Art, Gloucester
The paintings of Nicholas Jones immerse the viewer in the vast space and luminous light of the Arctic. Capturing a world made up of the simplest of ingredients - ice, water, rock, and light, this exhibition offers a point of connection with the fragile beauty of this astonishing region of our planet, on whose well-being we all depend.
Nicholas Jones is the 2022 winner of the Royal Geographical Societies Cherry Kearton medal. In 2018 he was the Scott Polar Research Institutes Arctic Artist in Residence, out of which these paintings were made. This exhibition will consist of around 40 of Nicholas Jones’ Arctic paintings completed between 2018 and 2022. The paintings range in size from small works on paper to two-meter large canvases. To compliment the display will be various small items from the Nature in Art collection including a 'Musk Ox' by Inuit sculptor and printmaker, Kananginak Pootoogook.
Nicholas Jones’ paintings have always dealt with one main subject: the landscape. From the countryside around his Somerset home, to the Arctic landscape of Lapland, Greenland and Baffin Island, he seeks to evoke the world of nature, of hills, mountains, water, skies, trees, and above all, light.
When in 2018, Nicholas Jones was appointed as Arctic Artist in Residence with the Friends of the Scott Polar Research Institute, he made a remarkable voyage along the coasts of Greenland and Baffin Island. The paintings in this exhibition are his response to the sublime light and landscapes he experienced in the Arctic, and visions of its beauty, power and simplicity. These paintings open our eyes to the beauty of nature, inviting us to a meditative contemplation of its wonders, and reminding us of the vital importance of preserving our shared home. It was for these works that the Royal Geographical Society awarded the Cherry Kearton medal, citing Nick’s “ability to ‘capture the uncapturable’: the ever-changing play of light on landscape.”
Nick Jones said: “Finding ways to evoke the endless richness of the natural world through paint on canvas has been a great pleasure and passion of my life'.
Picture credit: Nicholas Jones, Icebergs and Moon, Ilulissat, Greenland, 2019
Explore Gloucestershire
16 October 2023
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