Wanderlust | Dylan Jones
Online from 22 June 2023
Jan Manton Gallery is proud to present Wanderlust by Dylan Jones, an online exhibition. This new series of works sees an evolution of Jones’ en plein air approach to painting, as the artist adapted his modes of making to suit a more incidental engagement with time, place and subjects.
“Earlier this year, my partner, our child and I were fortunate enough to spend two months together exploring the UK and Ireland. The circumstances of travel required that I reduce my studio to an ultra-small scale. My painting box could only accommodate small works, even though the views in front of me were so large and expansive.
Travelling with an infant also meant I was limited in the amount of time I could paint each day. There were short windows of opportunity to paint during her naps, and in the evening after she had gone to sleep. This routine encouraged a more imaginative response to the landscape, painting from memory rather than from life. Portraits also began to emerge, inspired by simply looking at myself in the mirror or catching glimpses of my partner having some down time.” — Dylan Jones
The resulting body of works draws an interesting parallel between the method of making and the resulting compositions. As the expansive vistas of new places are rendered in a restricted scale, so too is the artists’ time, expanding and contracting against the novelty of travel and exploration.