Below Five Clours, 2016-2022

In the process, “nature” has become a commodity or consumable idea that we have come to see as separate from ourselves. Like ancient myth or legend, the natural world has managed to become something romanticised but distant: an essential part of our identity that we nevertheless have increasing trouble reconnecting with. The works are loosely based on landscape painting, but are non-specific: in their imagery, they are more about exploring the idea of raw, untempered nature. There are hints of horizon lines and figurative suggestions – a painting might remind one person of the sea, another of smoke from a fire, or of the depths of a forest – but the objective is to use abstraction to tap into something more amorphous and primeval.Jon paints with his hands rather than using brushes, working the paint in an almost trance-like state to create something organic and fluid. The resin acts like a kind of synthetic shield, a physical barrier between the viewer and the abstract natural ideal, to echo this state of separation of the viewer from the myth of raw nature.