Jan Manton
... out of time | Carl Warner
... out of time | Carl Warner
Jan Manton
Desire Path | Karla Marchesi
Desire Path | Karla Marchesi
Jan Manton
False Continuity | Jacinta Giles
False Continuity | Jacinta Giles
Jan Manton
Intimate Dialogues | Judith Wright
Intimate Dialogues | Judith Wright

Dylan Jones

Wanderlust | Dylan Jones

 

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.

 

Rising Tide | Dylan Jones

 

Rising Tide | Dylan Jones

8 November - 3 December, 2022

Jan Manton Gallery is proud to present Rising Tide by Dylan Jones showing between 8 November - 3 December, 2022. Rising Tide revisits Jones’ fondness for Moreton Island (Mulgumpin); a place that is home to many childhood memories. In his youth, Moreton Island was a frequent camping spot for Jones and his family. The minimal and subdued gouache paintings reference the more dismal days where dark clouds loomed over the island.

Portraying Moreton Island from the perspectives of both sea and land, Jones captures the vastness and ruggedness of landscape whilst inducing a sense of calm and stillness.

“The island itself is dense in vegetation yet the ocean is so vast. I wanted to capture this juxtaposition and contrast. The paintings are constructed from re-imaginings of my childhood years visiting the island by boat or standing on the island looking out to the endless horizon.” — Dylan Jones

Video Documentary

 
 

Room with a View | Dylan Jones

Room with a View | Dylan Jones

6 October - 24 October

Jan Manton Gallery is pleased to present Dylan Jones’s exhibition Room with a View, on show from 6 October - 24 October 2021.

Room with a View presents Jones’ first series of works painted with gouache, a significant departure from his typical oil paintings. Depicting the iconic landscape of Sydney Harbour, Jones looks away from its most famous sights and towards its ubiquitous coastlines. In these works, Jones creates soft, ephemeral scenes which invite the viewer to lull in their spacious compositions.

Jones states: As an artist, I believe it is imperative to push towards a new challenge rather than staying static. With this in mind, during early 2021 I deliberately placed myself amongst the iconic landscape of Sydney Harbour. An environment I previously would have deemed too beautiful to paint.

Throughout time, artists have been drawn to this site as a source of inspiration. Masters such as Arthur Streeton, Margaret Preston and Brett Whiteley all depicted their unique vision and response to this place and reveal the harbour with a certain unimaginable brilliance. Room With A View offers a fresh take on the subject and allows me to make my own mark in this lineage. Each work portrays the harbour in a humbler light, granting me the tranquilly to digest the environment’s overwhelming beauty on my own terms.

Instead of seeking out the conventional ‘postcard vistas’ we are accustomed to seeing, I positioned my entire focus through the East facing window of my accommodation when painting each work. The physical act of distancing myself from the landscape allowed my viewpoint to become less site specific. I was able to respond to the immediacy of my surroundings in order to reimagine structures and scenes of the everyday in a new, ubiquitous setting. The paintings do not settle on an exact moment in time, but instead have an ephemeral quality. The approach is one of subtlety and softness, inviting the viewer to lull in each spacious composition.

— Dylan Jones, 2021

 

Together. Alone. | Dylan Jones

 

Together. Alone. | Dylan Jones

9 September - 4 October 2020

Jan Manton Gallery is proud to present Dylan Jones’ latest exhibition ‘Together. Alone.’

Continuing his preoccupation with the figure, Jones uses the human body as a vehicle to explore the collective and the individual response to times of adversity. Using handmade paint applied in gestural and thick brush strokes, each step of Jones’ process is invested with raw emotion. His work points to a universality and relishes in the spontaneity of his artistic medium as well as the human experience.

2020 may be the most transformative and turbulent year of the 21st century. It is redefining the way people live and connect worldwide. Humanity is experiencing a collective grief in which individuals feel both together and alone simultaneously. Despite the ongoing anxiety and disparity, there continues to be countless acts of kindness and courage. The isolated figures in this series of work capture this state of flux. They appear detached and wounded, yet unified by the vacant abyss in which they reside. Contained within this series of works is a sense of hope and expectation for what is to come.

— Dylan Jones, August 2020