Jazz Green : Artist Journal

Posts tagged ‘saltscapes’

poetry month

February 1st, 2010

have decided to collate in one place my experimental haiku style poems, from the making of the recent saltscapes series, written May 17th to June 17th 2009…


from salt and earth,
i made a dystopian green with envy,
and chemistry smiled somewhat slyly…

May 17th, 2009


the ashes sighed,
mourning the old flame,
murmuring, if only…

May 18th, 2009


a bloodshot sky
hand in hand,
we returned cautiously…

May 19th, 2009


in a waterlogged eden,
the birds took flight
on sensing the eyes of strangers…

May 20th, 2009


through a grimy haze,
all burnt golden, mouth glistening, black
faces, charred by an obese sun…

May 21st, 2009


the haze cleared, a crystalline sky,
salt lakes and tidal pools
melted, into the silvered silt…

May 22nd, 2009


a disaster area
belches black
fury inflamed…

May 25th,  2009


in ore, the chromium mire
life lies, sleeping
slowly mineralised…

May 29th, 2009


the melting cavern,
into saline pools
it plinked, dyspepsia…

May 30th, 2009


limestone rocks
salt trails a scar
in time, healed…

May 31st, 2009


underground, a stream,
of consciousness
where perception flows…

June 6th, 2009

saltscape painting by jazz green
bruised rouge, to grey
clodded clay,
clawed deep, the way…

June 10th, 2009

saltscape 11 painting by jazz green, artist
a rockscape moulded
vestigal traces, marks
the slippery way out…

June 11th, 2009

saltscape painting on panel by jazz green
stepping on stones, skipping
the sedimental slabs, water blackened
striated, to the shore…

June 15th, 2009


abraded, by seawater and salt
coarse skin, furrowed then frowned
at a more polished reflection…

June 17th, 2009

uninterrupted views

July 13th, 2009

on salthouse 09…

paintings
[detail of saltscapes i-xxv at salthouse 09 art exhibition]

over the weekend i gave a brief talk on this piece… initially about ideas and concepts, and then materials and techniques…

i was surprised (and very happy) to hear that it has attracted a lot of interest from visitors, and one of the exhibition’s invigilators said that i had effectively sold it three times during the day (just the once is very nice)…

the next day i was there again to do my own stint of invigilating, which gave me a chance to revisit some of the artworks in the salthouse 09 show…

andy cairns’ salt encrusted construction corroded, crystallised, coalesced is a fascinating piece of coastal assemblage, displaying both resilience and fragility… rory mcshane’s woodcut print salt squares shared some similarities with my work, exploring the geometric formation of salt crystals, echoing the wider pattern of the constructed landscape… ross loveday’s trio of drypoint and carborundum etchings reminded me a little of the urbanscapes of john virtue, as their natural rural counterparts, with rich, dark expressive tones, deeply evocative of the wind-swept vistas of the north norfolk coast……

the celebrated painter maggi hambling displays one of her recent north sea paintings, storm wave, a high-energy, power-packed painting in which its depths persuade you to jump in and yet there is a fear drowning if you stay a little too long… marcela trsova’s piece light vessel, is a beautifully crafted construction of salt crystals and wire, an ethereal boat surrounded by wire fish suspended from the ceiling recalling souls to prayer… both antje ernestus and jane wheeler reference the ritual collection and harvesting of salt in their sculptural ceramic pieces…

david page’s some views of the marsh is a curiously abstract and dream-like painting, as one seemingly floats high above the salt marshes, with a solitary tiny figure just visible heading inland… colin yorke’s the outcasts is a work that is sensitively made, embracing the organic qualities of aged wood, as a group of partially seen carved heads, all the more moving when seen in their final resting place (outside the church wall)… there is also the work of ana maria pacheco, colin self, kabir hussain… too many to mention here as there are fifty artists included in this exhibition, but it is a show that is defintely worth its salt…

salthouse 09 : 2 july to 2 august 2009

and finally… [i saw this and thought of yew...]

a tranquil gaze

June 29th, 2009

after the hustle bustle of the art trail weekend, it was a welcome break to travel to salthouse to install my piece for the art exhibition…. having only ventured to salthouse a couple of times before, i am beginning to wonder if it is perpetually shrouded in an ethereal mist… as we travelled northwards, about ten miles from our destination, a mist appeared, and, unlike the mist of winter which descends slowly, silently and is usually quite still, this mist arrived in waves, moving in smoke-like drifts across the fields…

north norfolk mist over fields

small paintings for salthouse 09 art exhibition in salthouse church July 2009

[saltscapes i - xxv] 100cm x 100cm, gesso and mixed media on wood panel, installed for the exhibition salthouse 09

the mist scarcely dispersed along the winding coastal road, and became even denser as we neared salthouse… later, taking the short walk across the salt marshes to the sea, from the vantage point of the high shingle bank, all evidence of salthouse the village was erased by a silvery greyness, and looking north, east and west the mist quietly enveloped, obliterating the sea horizon, a sense of direction briefly lost but a strange sense of immensity gained… a vaporous cocoon of immeasurable calm…

salthouse beach in mist
[salthouse beach, june 2009]

a tranquil gaze, discovered in the humblest of eyes, are the artisans of immensity (bachelard)