Talk Art

Talk Art Season 7 continues!! Russell and Robert meet Lucy Jones (b.1955), the British artist world renowned for her raw, wild landscapes and distinctively provocative self-portraits, characterised by expressive brushwork and bold use of vibrant colour. Balancing an intricate rendering of line and space in her landscapes with the powerful simplicity of her portraits, Jones’s paintings conduct a journey through both interior landscapes and the external world beyond. Lucy Jones’ distinctively provocative self-portraits address themes of ageing, femininity, self-image and disability. Jones, who was born with cerebral palsy, has faced the frustrations of her disability over-crowding people’s perceptions of her. Her self-portraits often challenge the way others see her: by using her defiant ferocity, vulnerability and wry sense of humour she turns the attention back onto the viewer.

This is evident in works such as With a Handicap Like Yours..., in which an extra disembodied hand appears from the side of the canvas, “poking and prodding at institutional attitudes” and misplaced comments she has received. “The point is here that having three hands may truly be unusual and maybe the doctor is referring to the third hand!”. Just Looking, Just Checking on You depicts Jones' figure, arms curled around her knees, angled as if the viewer is looking at her from slightly above, with the works title painted directly onto the canvas in reverse. The aim is to recreate the experience of reading with dyslexia, the invisible source of a struggle Jones has had her entire life.

Jones believes that the “unseen struggles” behind making the work are as equally important as the overt messages laid bare in her portraits. Since her move to the Shropshire countryside in 2004, she has begun to venture into the landscape, placing a board on the ground and kneeling for several hours to create pastel or watercolour works, which usually become the basis for large landscape paintings years later. For Jones, these intensive and often paintfully uncomfortable sessions have brought emotional range and interiority to her landscape works, the landscape becoming irretrievably "Inscape". Critic Jackie Wullschlager wrote that Jones' more recent landscapes have developed a "newly defined sense of quiet vulnerability and vigorous determination that had always been present in the self-portraits".

Lucy's new online exhibition 'Awkward Beauty' is available to view now at Flowers Gallery's website: www.flowersgallery.com

Visit Lucy's page at Flowers Gallery: www.flowersgallery.com/artists/36-lucy-jones/ Follow Flowers Gallery at Instagram: @FlowersGallery

Jones studied at Camberwell School of Art, followed by the Royal College of Art, where she won a Rome scholarship in 1982. Born in London, she now lives in Ludlow, and is much inspired by the landscape area bordering Wales, Herefordshire and Shropshire. This episode was recorded on Saturday 5th January 2020 live at Flowers Gallery. Special thanks to Matthew Flowers and Natasha Woolliams.

For images of all artworks discussed in this episode visit @TalkArt. Talk Art theme music by Jack Northover @JackNorthoverMusic courtesy of HowlTown.com We've just joined Twitter too...