Monotype by Val Jones
Clump Ripen
Val Jones
My lifelong journey in art has followed my travels around the UK and the world. I see many influences from places and people but most of all in my present environment in Devon.
My landscape inspired paintings and prints aim to express wildness and movement, colour and vibrancy. There are glimpses of features giving scale and contrast though increasingly I’m omitting these and heading towards a more abstract response.
I studied in Leeds and after teaching moved to Birmingham where I and gained an M.A. at Birmingham school of art
I was senior lecturer there for 6 years before moving to Devon where I’ve lived for the last 28 years, formerly in Totnes and at present in Exeter, a founder member of the CROW (Creative Older Women Artists) as well as the 21 Group of artists. I work from my studio in Sidwell Street
My interest in printmaking led me to experiment with monotypes, the most painterly form of printmaking. I was a member of Dartington Printmakers for many years. A few years ago, a painting course with the landscape painter David Tress led me to a more expressive form of printmaking and painting.
This also created an enormous transition with the move from oil painting and printmaking to working with acrylics. The properties of acrylic paint had previously deterred me. I preferred the flexibility of working in oils but after a week in Pembrokeshire working from plein air sketches and working in acrylics I moved to a freer, more expressive approach which then influenced my printmaking. I’m currently influenced by David Makin, Cornish painter.
I’m interested in the inner landscape of my imagination.
“Energy and motion made visible – memories arrested in space” - Jackson Pollock
The exciting use of colour and design in the pastel work of David Blackburn led me to work which exploited the contrast of rich swathes of colour with delineating blocks of black satisfying both the need for experiment and control.
My most recent monotypes have made that journey into near abstraction with the experimentation of reusing previous fragments of monotypes as Chine Colle.
Although I strive for abstraction as the most satisfying form of art practice for me, I understand and take on board the words of Kandinsky
“Form itself, even if completely abstract ... has its own inner sound.” - ― Wassily Kandinsky
It’s that inner sound I’m chasing and hope to capture.
Monotype
45x46cm
Framed Under Glass