Clive Hicks-Jenkins |
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Critic Nicholas Usherwood has described the
work of Clive Hicks-Jenkins as ‘reflective, expressive painting of the highest order’. From a background as a choreographer and theatre director, Hicks-Jenkins has since the 1990s become increasingly well-known as a painter, producing exploratory sequences of works that embrace diverse subject-matter with a consistent and distinctive vision. His paintings are now held in all the principal public collections in Wales and his artists’ books are in libraries worldwide; he is a Royal Cambrian Academician and an Honorary Fellow of Aberystwyth University. |
| This book is the first to survey Clive Hicks-
Jenkins’ work as a whole, and is published in
celebration of the artist’s sixtieth birthday. Its wide-ranging
texts are written by poets, novelists and art
historians based in Britain and the USA. They address
themes inherent in Hicks-Jenkins’ different bodies of
work: sense of place; his theatrical ensembles created
from familiar objects; his sequence of huge drawings
inspired by the Welsh folk tradition of the Mari Lwyd;
his important series made in response to fragments
of a Tuscan altarpiece; stories of the miraculous; the
influence of theatre in the artist’s use of puppet-like
maquettes; the connections between his drawing and
choreography; his artist’s books; and his dialogues with
contemporary poets. Robert Macdonald has written in Planet, ‘There are not many artists in Wales, or in Britain as a whole for that matter, whose art deals in a serious way with big issues. I believe that Clive’s painting does just that.’ The book will be welcomed by the artist’s growing following of supporters and by all those with an interest in figurative and narrative painting. |
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| Fine art books from the Grey Mare Press |
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Published in association with Lund Humphries and
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| One of the most individual and complete artists of our time SIMON CALLOW |
| His work is imbued with poise and balance, and the illusory strangeness of the stage ALISON LLOYD, ART REVIEW |