“Turn over an immersed stone and a wealth of aquatic life is exposed; shellfish, caddis fly larvae and shrimps all racing for cover.”
Kurt Jackson, 2019
His second river journey (this exhibition runs after The Stour, at Messums London) also has familial connections, following the course of the Fonthill Brook, a mere one-hundred yards from Messums Wilshire where these paintings will be shown. It was in Wiltshire – and between Fonthill Bishop and Fonthill Gifford – that Jackson’s maternal grandparents settled to raise a family before the war. The estate of which Messums Wiltshire is now a part, provided both a house and employment, and it was amongst the gentle sloping fields and around the Fonthill Lake that the artist’s mother and siblings took their first steps. Jackson describes the clear chalk stream of the Fonthill Brook that flows out of the lake (and later joins the languid Nadder at Tisbury) as ‘a glorious nature-filled watercourse, [and] a fragile precious habitat that deserves our continuing respect.’
For more information and images from this exhibition, please visit the gallery website.
Kurt Jackson – Fonthill
January 10 – February 16 2019.
Messums Wiltshire,
Place Farm,
Court St,
Tisbury SP3 6LW