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LANDMARKS
MEGAN JONES
ORIEL LLIW GALLERY
In his opening words to landscape into art Sir Kenneth Clark noted that humanity is surrounded by a nonhuman world of trees, flowers, grasses, rivers, hills, clouds - all incorporated into the idea of 'nature'. He went on to remark that whatever is called nature is a human conception. Megan Jones whose exhibition landmarks is set in and around her home in Ystradgynlais covers 40 years of the artists work, a style very much set in the traditional forms of Welsh landscape art. Though in this instance there resides a creative energy within the paintings.
Alongside Clark we can add Cezanne, an artist whose influence is visible within this exhibition. He did not set out to change appearances of the outside world but to reflect the unchanging being or in stark terms the essence of the landscape, not the fleeting light or gathering storm. The reasons for highlighting these opinions is to contrast with the somewhat trite remarks that critics seem to use when talking about the poetics involved within the framework of Welsh landscape art. In the canon of western civilisation who reigns supreme, the wordsmith or the dauber? The overly simplistic analogy in descriptive narratives of Welsh art is to evoke Dylan or R S. All this does is lead to a paucity of imagination in describing contemporary Welsh art, a lack of emotional thought and fluidity of application the result.
The interest in this exhibition is how one individual represents their 'patch' through aesthetic means. The quality of the work is varied, that is to be accepted in anybody who practices as an artist, troughs are rarely encountered until retrospective gazes upon us. Whilst it is apparent that Megan is comfortable in her habitat her most powerful works are when you sense isolation, the silence unforgiving. The land no longer visible as an image, emotional qualities peculiar to the viewer take hold. Where you end is in the throes of your imagination, a journey that is pleasant for there is no logical return.
One leaves the exhibition with a sense that here is a pioneering woman, one who broke the conventions back in the 1950's by going to art school. That in itself a bold step for a woman to study art was not openly encouraged. Thankfully times are a little more enlightened. What to take away? A body of work evolving, skills refined to produce an exhibition that suits the intimacy of the gallery space. Little surprises around the corner, the complete never yielding at once. Writing in 1849 Alexander Von Humboldt states '... It may be a rash attempt to endeavour to separate into its different elements, the magic power exercised upon our minds by the physical world, since the character of the landscape depends so materially upon the mutual relation of the ideas and sentiments simultaneously excited in the mind of the observer'. In this landmarks resides. David Jones November 2003
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