A protected landscape

This autumn sees the launch of ‘A Prehistoric Cornwall’, the latest exhibition from Kurt Jackson, arguably one of Britain’s most celebrated living landscape painters. 

In this body of work Jackson visits the relics of prehistoric Cornwall and captures the county’s extraordinary range of ancient monuments with a new series of paintings and sculpture. The landscape is full of these monuments, some are obvious and picturesque –  a stone circle – while others are incongruous; hidden and overlooked despite their size and historical significance, cut-off and smothered by dual-carriageways, roundabouts and car dealerships. 

These monuments are an important and integral part of the Cornish landscape and its culture. They are a piece of Cornish heritage. Jackson comments: “These are extraordinary places to visit, to draw and to paint. As the eye, the hand, or the feet follow the features, the mind also wanders, trying to find meaning and explanation.”

A Prehistoric Cornwall is displayed beautifully within the award-winning Jackson Foundation gallery, an expansive carbon-positive, ex-industrial building tucked away down a side street of the charming post-mining community of St Just-in-Penwith. Massive white walls and exposed black steel allow Jackson’s canvasses, as monumental as they are in their own right, space to breathe, and the impressive 300 square metres of polished concrete floorspace allow the viewer to immerse themselves in the artwork from a distance or inspect the minute detail up close.

For this show, the Jackson Foundation has joined with the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership, who will be using the upstairs gallery space to share their work in conserving Cornwall’s protected landscape so that it remains Cornwall’s key asset, valued by local people and visitors alike. 

The Jackson Foundation continues to work to become a positive force for change. The gallery is free to visit and provides local employment, raising awareness and funds for groups working to protect the environment and giving back to a community that has been home to the to the Jackson family for nearly thirty years.

Kurt Jackson: A Prehistoric Cornwall runs until 7th November at the Jackson Foundation Gallery, St Just. Open Wednesday to Saturday. 10am to 1pm, 2pm to 5pm. www.jacksonfoundationgallery.com/prehistoric-cornwall

THE JACKSON FOUNDATION
North Row, St Just TR19 7LB
01736 787638
www.jacksonfoundationgallery.com