Jonathan Powell studied at Swansea Metropolitan University gaining an MA Distinction in Contemporary dialogues in 2012. Jonathan was a director of Exposure Gallery, Swansea from 2004 - 07 and has been Curator and Director at elysium gallery, Swansea from 2007 - present. He also runs the Beep Painting Prize Biennial.
www.elysiumgallery.com
www.beeppainting.com
www.elysiumgallery.com
www.beeppainting.com
When We Build Again, Mission Gallery, Swansea. 8th August-28th September 2014
The vaulted space of the Mission Gallery, formerly the church of St Nicholas, is both intimately contemplative and cosmological. Architecture of this nature articulates space in ways that integrate us as embodied subjects with a universe for which space has a form or character that reflects some fundamental conception of our relationship with a greater whole. Into this space come Powell’s paintings, in which architectural constructions and spatial relationships manifest a very different order of relations. What look like highly improvised and provisional structures float around in an indeterminate space, they are not really located, they drift while they seemingly expand as assemblages with no signs of actually being built, because no life or activity is apparent, they seem to grow like plants, but they lack the expression of organic development shown by actual plants. They are hybrid forms, at once mechanical and biological, human and inhuman. Are they derelict remnants or an improvised beginning? A row of plants in pots inhabit a long window ledge, high up in Powell’s studio, cacti that build like surrealistic architecture, straggling spider plants hanging from their pots. These potted plants seem strangely displaced, like the un-located forms in the paintings. Associations continue to ramify; the large canvases bring to mind post-apocalyptic themes, DIY space-stations; certain of the structures look like formidable, if rather dysfunctional insects, others again seem to sprout aerials and cameras into a bituminous haze, yet again, they could be microscopic diatoms. All these ambiguities mobilise imagination and resist definitive interpretations.
The 1943 film When We Build Again looks at both the inherited housing conditions of the time, and utopian visions for large-scale future developments in urban planning, including garden cities. The encounter between raw matter of fact and utopian hopes, aspirations, imagined possibilities, pivots on our spatial and temporal sensibilities, our trajectory from past to future encounters the space of infinite possibility, of dreams and nightmares. We encounter ourselves in these environmental visions; Powell’s structures float in his imagination and present us with a topography of mind. The character of this topography is pervaded by a sense of dereliction. In the paintings, bitumen corrupts the oil paint; the eternal purity of colour encounters the corrosive chemistry of decay. While colour in itself does not die, it nonetheless vanishes and re-appears like a spirit; paintings and civilisations on the other hand, do indeed perish.
Powell’s work builds and sustains a fundamental expressive character and materiality that has been sustained over years of practice. This has passed through a succession of related themes: perspectival recessions of crowded cityscapes, massed inhabitants, isolated individuals who erupt into being with a wild unfathomable uniqueness, empty buildings haunted and redundant; out of all this, the current work continues to evolve in ways that reflect a pervasive anxiety about urban living. A solitary figure, reminiscent of the earlier personages, inhabits a recess in the exhibition, manipulating the component panels of the floating structures.
While drawing and painting provides Powell with a medium with which to explore and reflect upon the plight of urban humanity and the constructed environments that have become integral to the human condition, he has been strongly motivated to make direct interventions in that environment by taking initiatives and becoming a leading figure in the cultural life of Swansea. He has achieved this through taking on the mantle of co-managing Elysium Gallery along with associated studio spaces in various Swansea city centre buildings, and through this, has curated important exhibitions, events and symposia. In all these respects, Powell is both a dispassionate social observer and a fully participating insider. As an observer of humanity, he has been progressing with a practice that encompasses diverse perspectives, affording massive overviews, idiosyncratic intimacy, moral insight, the sweep of history and cosmological vision. Powell shows the capacity for contemporary painting to make large statements about large themes.
Dr Robert A. Newell
The vaulted space of the Mission Gallery, formerly the church of St Nicholas, is both intimately contemplative and cosmological. Architecture of this nature articulates space in ways that integrate us as embodied subjects with a universe for which space has a form or character that reflects some fundamental conception of our relationship with a greater whole. Into this space come Powell’s paintings, in which architectural constructions and spatial relationships manifest a very different order of relations. What look like highly improvised and provisional structures float around in an indeterminate space, they are not really located, they drift while they seemingly expand as assemblages with no signs of actually being built, because no life or activity is apparent, they seem to grow like plants, but they lack the expression of organic development shown by actual plants. They are hybrid forms, at once mechanical and biological, human and inhuman. Are they derelict remnants or an improvised beginning? A row of plants in pots inhabit a long window ledge, high up in Powell’s studio, cacti that build like surrealistic architecture, straggling spider plants hanging from their pots. These potted plants seem strangely displaced, like the un-located forms in the paintings. Associations continue to ramify; the large canvases bring to mind post-apocalyptic themes, DIY space-stations; certain of the structures look like formidable, if rather dysfunctional insects, others again seem to sprout aerials and cameras into a bituminous haze, yet again, they could be microscopic diatoms. All these ambiguities mobilise imagination and resist definitive interpretations.
The 1943 film When We Build Again looks at both the inherited housing conditions of the time, and utopian visions for large-scale future developments in urban planning, including garden cities. The encounter between raw matter of fact and utopian hopes, aspirations, imagined possibilities, pivots on our spatial and temporal sensibilities, our trajectory from past to future encounters the space of infinite possibility, of dreams and nightmares. We encounter ourselves in these environmental visions; Powell’s structures float in his imagination and present us with a topography of mind. The character of this topography is pervaded by a sense of dereliction. In the paintings, bitumen corrupts the oil paint; the eternal purity of colour encounters the corrosive chemistry of decay. While colour in itself does not die, it nonetheless vanishes and re-appears like a spirit; paintings and civilisations on the other hand, do indeed perish.
Powell’s work builds and sustains a fundamental expressive character and materiality that has been sustained over years of practice. This has passed through a succession of related themes: perspectival recessions of crowded cityscapes, massed inhabitants, isolated individuals who erupt into being with a wild unfathomable uniqueness, empty buildings haunted and redundant; out of all this, the current work continues to evolve in ways that reflect a pervasive anxiety about urban living. A solitary figure, reminiscent of the earlier personages, inhabits a recess in the exhibition, manipulating the component panels of the floating structures.
While drawing and painting provides Powell with a medium with which to explore and reflect upon the plight of urban humanity and the constructed environments that have become integral to the human condition, he has been strongly motivated to make direct interventions in that environment by taking initiatives and becoming a leading figure in the cultural life of Swansea. He has achieved this through taking on the mantle of co-managing Elysium Gallery along with associated studio spaces in various Swansea city centre buildings, and through this, has curated important exhibitions, events and symposia. In all these respects, Powell is both a dispassionate social observer and a fully participating insider. As an observer of humanity, he has been progressing with a practice that encompasses diverse perspectives, affording massive overviews, idiosyncratic intimacy, moral insight, the sweep of history and cosmological vision. Powell shows the capacity for contemporary painting to make large statements about large themes.
Dr Robert A. Newell
Jonathan Powell CV
Selected Exhibitions
Mar 2005
The Human Landscape Solo exhibition, Exposure Gallery, Swansea.
July- Sept 05
Future Landscapes Group Exhibition, Shrewsbury Art Gallery, Shropshire.
Oct 2005
Dead Horse as a part of the Swansea Fringe Festival.
Sept 2006
21st Century Graduate Preview Show Belmont Art Gallery, Shrewsbury, Shropshire.
Oct 2006
21st Century Graduate Show, Shrewsbury Art Gallery, Shropshire
****Awarded People’s Prize****
Oct/Nov 2006
Dead Horse Group, Bridgwater art Gallery, Somerset
Mar/Apr 2007
Sleepwalking to Extinction- Otter Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex
May/June 2007
Dead Horse Bath gallery and studios, Bath, Fringe Festival’
June/July 2007
New View - Contemporary painting in Wales, Mission Gallery, Swansea.
March/April 2008
Three Swansea Artists, group show, Rhondda Heritage park gallery, Pontypridd.
March/April 2008
A collection of Drawings, group show, Mission gallery, Swansea.
November/December 2008
Horizons’ group exhibition at Cardiff, The Norwegian Church arts centre.
December 2009- January 2010
That’s Interesting…Oriel Bach, Mumbles, Swansea
May 2010
Grid 57 Oriel Lliw, Pontardawe
May 2010
Citizen – Dissent & Disorder – Utility & Construction tactileBOSCH, Cardiff
Aug/Sept 2010
Pop up, Mock up, Inside, Outside – A1 Gallery, Edinburgh
Sept/Oct 2010
A Taste of Wales – Freies Museum, Berlin
Sept 2011
refleXions – Galleria Perela, Venice, Italy
Oct 2012
Blowback – tactileBOSCH, Cardiff
May 2013
Barnraising & Bunkers – g39, Cardiff
July 2013
(Designs for) When We Build Again – the (...) space, Mission Gallery, Swansea
January-March 2014
Talking buildings/Back Wall Series - Oriel Myrrdin, Carmarthen
August 2014
When We Build Again (solo exhibition) – The Mission Gallery, Swansea
September/October 2014
From Here & There: Drawings from Swansea to Colorado - Clara Hatton Gallery, Colorado, USA
October/November 2014
Paradise Lost - tactileBOSCH, Cardiff Contemporary, Former Customs & Immigration Building, Cardiff
July/August 2015
BLAST, Colony Projects, Port Talbot
Curated Exhibitions
Sept/Oct 2005
Welsh Graduate Showcase, Exposure Gallery, Swansea
August-December 2006
Welsh Graduate Showcase Parts I & II, Exposure Gallery, Swansea
Feb/Mar 2009
Overview (on Painting), Elysium Gallery, 41 High St, Swansea
May/June 2010
After the End... , Elysium Gallery, 96-97 Mansel St, Swansea
June/July 2011
Sublinear: 5 Perspectives on Drawing, Elysium Gallery, 31 Cradock St, Swansea
November 2011
DISRUPTION – Performance/Art across the City of Swansea
July/August 2012
Beep 2012 - Wales International Painting Prize: Through Tomorrows Eyes, VOLCANO, 229 High St, Swansea
November 2012
Elysium Gallery @ tactileBOSCH - Uncharted Perspectives, tactileBOSCH, Cardiff
July 2013
WHAT ARE THEY BUILDING DOWN THERE? , Elysium Gallery, Swansea
Sept 2014
From Here & There: Drawings from Swansea to Colorado, Clara Hatton Gallery, Colorado, USA
Oct 2014
Beep 2014 - Wales international Painting Prize: A Portrait of the Artist As....... , elysiumgallery, The Old Iceland Building, High Street, Swansea
November/December 2014
From Here & There: Drawings from Colorado to Swansea, elysiumgallery, The Old Iceland Building, High Street, Swansea
Selected Exhibitions
Mar 2005
The Human Landscape Solo exhibition, Exposure Gallery, Swansea.
July- Sept 05
Future Landscapes Group Exhibition, Shrewsbury Art Gallery, Shropshire.
Oct 2005
Dead Horse as a part of the Swansea Fringe Festival.
Sept 2006
21st Century Graduate Preview Show Belmont Art Gallery, Shrewsbury, Shropshire.
Oct 2006
21st Century Graduate Show, Shrewsbury Art Gallery, Shropshire
****Awarded People’s Prize****
Oct/Nov 2006
Dead Horse Group, Bridgwater art Gallery, Somerset
Mar/Apr 2007
Sleepwalking to Extinction- Otter Gallery, Chichester, West Sussex
May/June 2007
Dead Horse Bath gallery and studios, Bath, Fringe Festival’
June/July 2007
New View - Contemporary painting in Wales, Mission Gallery, Swansea.
March/April 2008
Three Swansea Artists, group show, Rhondda Heritage park gallery, Pontypridd.
March/April 2008
A collection of Drawings, group show, Mission gallery, Swansea.
November/December 2008
Horizons’ group exhibition at Cardiff, The Norwegian Church arts centre.
December 2009- January 2010
That’s Interesting…Oriel Bach, Mumbles, Swansea
May 2010
Grid 57 Oriel Lliw, Pontardawe
May 2010
Citizen – Dissent & Disorder – Utility & Construction tactileBOSCH, Cardiff
Aug/Sept 2010
Pop up, Mock up, Inside, Outside – A1 Gallery, Edinburgh
Sept/Oct 2010
A Taste of Wales – Freies Museum, Berlin
Sept 2011
refleXions – Galleria Perela, Venice, Italy
Oct 2012
Blowback – tactileBOSCH, Cardiff
May 2013
Barnraising & Bunkers – g39, Cardiff
July 2013
(Designs for) When We Build Again – the (...) space, Mission Gallery, Swansea
January-March 2014
Talking buildings/Back Wall Series - Oriel Myrrdin, Carmarthen
August 2014
When We Build Again (solo exhibition) – The Mission Gallery, Swansea
September/October 2014
From Here & There: Drawings from Swansea to Colorado - Clara Hatton Gallery, Colorado, USA
October/November 2014
Paradise Lost - tactileBOSCH, Cardiff Contemporary, Former Customs & Immigration Building, Cardiff
July/August 2015
BLAST, Colony Projects, Port Talbot
Curated Exhibitions
Sept/Oct 2005
Welsh Graduate Showcase, Exposure Gallery, Swansea
August-December 2006
Welsh Graduate Showcase Parts I & II, Exposure Gallery, Swansea
Feb/Mar 2009
Overview (on Painting), Elysium Gallery, 41 High St, Swansea
May/June 2010
After the End... , Elysium Gallery, 96-97 Mansel St, Swansea
June/July 2011
Sublinear: 5 Perspectives on Drawing, Elysium Gallery, 31 Cradock St, Swansea
November 2011
DISRUPTION – Performance/Art across the City of Swansea
July/August 2012
Beep 2012 - Wales International Painting Prize: Through Tomorrows Eyes, VOLCANO, 229 High St, Swansea
November 2012
Elysium Gallery @ tactileBOSCH - Uncharted Perspectives, tactileBOSCH, Cardiff
July 2013
WHAT ARE THEY BUILDING DOWN THERE? , Elysium Gallery, Swansea
Sept 2014
From Here & There: Drawings from Swansea to Colorado, Clara Hatton Gallery, Colorado, USA
Oct 2014
Beep 2014 - Wales international Painting Prize: A Portrait of the Artist As....... , elysiumgallery, The Old Iceland Building, High Street, Swansea
November/December 2014
From Here & There: Drawings from Colorado to Swansea, elysiumgallery, The Old Iceland Building, High Street, Swansea
