Current Activities | Timothy Emlyn Jones

New exhibition 9th July – 31st August 2023

THE OCEAN AND THE FOREST : GALLERY CAFE, GORT

Two subjects and two ways of seeing: it’s as if this exhibition was by two different artists. Not so. The connection is to do with the demands of looking and seeing.

The open space of the ocean demands wide attention, empty until you see how it is full of its emptiness, the hugeness of the air and its interplay with the still waters below it. These abstract paintings are responses to the equanimity brought on by gazing out to sea and surrendering to it, whether from the Flaggy Shore or from Fanore. The rain pulsing in from the west, carrying the light with it, is celebrated in its illusory patterns of moiré and refracted colours, experienced not just by looking but by immersion and engaging all the senses. These brightly coloured paintings shown in the rear gallery are in acrylics on birch panels.

The closed space of the forest defies attention, too full of the detail that gathers round you to make sense, and it demands a different response. These drawings are responses to immersion in the plantations of silver birch and beech, or the clusters of self-seeding ash, whether at Knockouran on Slieve Aughty, Garryland, Kilheela, under Turloughmore, or at Kinver Edge in Staffordshire. The light flickering through the canopy of leaves, creating a dapple of amorphous patterns. These monochrome drawings shown in the main restaurant are in acrylics or Chinese ink on heavy watercolour paper.

For many years, the art of Timothy Emlyn Jones has been an enquiry into consciousness and here we can see two dimensions of it.

READ WHAT THE POET FRANK GOLDEN SAYS ABOUT THIS EXHIBITION:

(This essay was published in Visual Artists Ireland Newsheet, Sept-October 2023

When I came to Ballyvaughan in the late nineteen eighties I used to run into the noted installation and video artist James/Seamus Coleman who had a summer cottage on the green road in a little kind of dingly dell surrounded by apple trees and beech trees. He used to say to me that he could spend hours just sitting in his chair mindfully gazing out the window alert to the plenitude of the natural world surrounding him. He used to speak of these periods of immersive observation as being critical to his process. There’s a similar story relating to the great Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke who in the early part of the twentieth century worked as secretary to the sculptor Auguste Rodin. Rodin was Rilke’s first mentor and when Rilke was at an impasse in his work Rodin advised him to go to the zoo and to sit for hours in the presence of an animal. Rilke was only 24 or 25 at the time and the animal he chose was a panther. He sat for hours with the panther in immersive contemplation and the poem he produced was a seminal work and set him on course to become a poet of great power.

Timothy Emlyn Jones is an artist with the same attitude, the same disposition of mind as these two great artists – namely that the phenomenal world is the ultimate subject and it is his immersive, self-sublimating attention in the midst of nature that sets him and these works apart. Jones’s magisterial drawings are the result of a kind of contemplative and meditative in-dwelling in the landscape. His subject is clear and the resonance of his observations is profound. But as Tim himself would say – every painting is in a way incomplete, we the viewer with our attendant experiences and histories complete each work and compel the closing of that relationship between artist and viewer, and it is through that relationship that the painting achieves its ultimate destiny.

These works are deeply contemplative, works that will repay the viewer time and again with repositories of received meaning and connections, and as time passes each person who chooses to live with these works will find new depths and points of stimulation within them. These are works that will deepen as you yourself deepen in the contemplation of them.

Every artist – no matter what the discipline – talks about getting to a point or a state of immersion with a work – this is the point where there is a kind of self-forgetfulness, where the ego and its attendant stresses is sublimated and you enter a state of ecstatic flow. When this point is reached time seems suspended, time passes without any real consciousness of it passing, and the work seems to complete itself by a kind of magical artifice through your hand. As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says in his lecture on flow the word ecstasy is from the Greek which means to stand to the side and it was only later that it became analogous to a mental state. Mihaly goes on to say that ecstasy is essentially about stepping into an alternative reality where your identity disappears from your consciousness. Obviously this will only happen if you have the established skills and technique to accomplish whatever it is you’re doing – be it realising a drawing or writing a novel. And Tim has a lifetime’s worth of experience in drawing which is the ground for the realisation of these works. And he is a master of flow and of mergence and the serenity these works exude is a reflection of that.

And so we have this exhibition divided neatly into the ocean and the forest, as the title of this exhibition implies, but in a way they are two parts of a whole and sit easily together because they derive from the same attitude of mind and the same disposition of contemplative enquiry. To talk about the forest first, when I asked Tim in a studio visit if the birch drawings had an affinity to any other artist I was surprised when he said Gustav Klimt. Klimt, who I had thought of principally as a figurative artist – many of you will know of his painting ‘The Kiss and his use of gold. But he was also a landscape painter and these landscape paintings he composed during his summer stays at Lake Attersee. It is only when you see his beech and birch paintings that the link or echo that Tim adverted to in my conversation with him becomes obvious. But Tim’s drawings are less representational, more abstract, and manage negative space with a completely different level of authority. There are also echoes of Egon Schiele’s more metaphorical landscape paintings and philosophical alliances with yet another Austrian artist – Hundertwasser – who was attracted by the idea of transautomatism which is a version of Tim’s idea of the relationship between the drawing and the viewer.

There has always been something of the rebel about Tim, and this goes back to his membership of the Free International University (FIU) which was established by the artists Josef Beuys and the writer Heinrich Boll in the mid-seventies and which focused in part on interdisciplinary work and cooperation between the sciences and the arts at a time when that was far from fashionable. Tim played a very active part in the FIU. Here that rebel note is struck in Tim’s use of Stuart Semple’s ‘Black 3.0’ the original of which the artist Anish Kapoor tried to buy exclusive rights to, and his version of IKB (Incredibly Kleinish Blue). To counteract this desire for elitist exclusivity Stuart Semple devised an approximate formulation of these colours. Black is central to Tim’s oeuvre and when I asked him to riff on the importance of black to him he said; ‘Black emphasises the nature of the mark. It is unquestionably itself before it is anything else.’ I love this last statement – that something is unquestionably itself before it is anything else – in a way it is a version of the dialectical progression or interaction that occurs between the artist and the observed world.

Given the contemplative and meditative nature of the work I asked Tim if he had a ritualised set of actions prior to engaging with a drawing. He spoke of centering and of the Alexander Technique and of breath. And in the ocean drawings in particular each line is delivered on the outbreath which gives particular power to the lineation. When I queried the use of the square format as against a landscape format he said that ‘Square doesn’t allow you to scan, it dominates you!’ And within the square format you have this moiré effect which is an optical illusion of lines transparently superimposed on one another creating this kaleidoscopic effect and is evidence of the artistic artifice that elevates the work. And this square format is also a further echo of Klimt who used the same format for his landscapes.

An important question for every artist is knowing when to stop, knowing when a work has realised its particular destiny. For Tim the point at which you stop is ‘the point at which you can no longer find the correct place for the next mark.’

This is a flawlessly conceived and flawlessly executed show – even the apparently unintentional, such as line wobbles, exude intentionality!

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You are warmly welcomed to visit one or more of the five group exhibitions I’m taking part in, opening in May 2022:

Shades of Green, curated by Sandra Higgins, at Royal United Hospitals, Bath, 12^th May – 24^th July, https://www.sandrahiggins.art/post/shades-of-green-exhibition;

RE Original Prints at Bankside Gallery, London (next door to Tate Modern), 13^th May – 10^th June, https://www.banksidegallery.com/exhibitions/79-re-original-prints-2022/overview/;

Artist members of the Chelsea Arts Club at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, https://www.chelwest.nhs.uk/about-us/news/news-archive/2017/chelsea-arts-club-exhibition-at-chelsea-and-westminster-hospital, from 25^th May 2022.

192^nd RHA Annual Exhibition, Dublin, 23^rd May – 24^th July, https://rhagallery.ie/events/exhibitions/192nd-rha-annual-exhibition-2022/;

Summer Exhibition at The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, Ireland, 20^th May – 25^th July, https://thecourthousegallery.com/item/737-summer-open .

It’s also possible to see some of my work at the Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, which has some in stock, though not on the wall.

This picture is of me at the Varnishing Day at the RHA, with The Sea of Equanimity:

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I’m delighted to be included in the Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition this year with ‘The Sea of Equanimity’ (75cm x 75cm), acrylic on birch panel. If you are in Dublin between 23rd May and 24th July this exhibition is well worth a visit.

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You are warmly invited to the opening of my exhibition of new work at The Gallery Cafe in Gort, Co Galway at 7pm Wednesday 10th November 2021. The exhibition will be opened by Conor McGrady, Dean of Burren College of Art, and it continues until 31st December 2021.

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I am delighted to have been offered representation of my recent paintings and drawings by Sandra Higgins Art, an American gallerist and independent curator who is based in the UK. I hope you would like to see a selection of this work by visiting sandrahiggins.art . Sandra is from Chicago and ran her own gallery in London’s Mayfair before setting up her new website. I am pleased to be one of the 12 artists she has chosen to represent and all of us can be seen on her website. She offers opportunities to not only see but also buy a range of my recent work.

http://www.sandrahiggins.art/jones

The Lark Acending, Acrylic on Fabriano Artistico, 75cm x 75cm

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I would like to invite you to visit my online lockdown exhibition of new work, which you can find here. As with my earlier work, the subject of “The Conscious Unconscious” is what happens when you look out to see. By this I mean how looking at looking at things, or the absence of things, can be a starting point of an unpredictable and rewarding journey. Many of the works started with looking out to sea on a calm day—the Flaggy Shore in Clare, and Rhossilli in Gower being my favourite such places—to discover states of mind, such as equanimity, which are the true subject matter of these works. I hope you enjoy the exhibition, and I’d be pleased to hear from you if you’d like to comment at hello@timothyemlynjones.com

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Timothy Emlyn Jones was elected to membership of The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers in March 2019

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Timothy Emlyn Jones will be giving an artist’s talk at his exhibition ‘For Here There Is No Place’ at 4pm on Monday 15th October 2018 at Burren College of Art Gallery, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare. Everyone is welcome.

FOR HERE THERE IS NO PLACE

an exhibition of recent drawings and paintings by

timothy emlyn jones

14^th September to 19^th October 2018, 10am – 5pm, Monday – Friday

Burren College of Art Gallery, Newtown Castle, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare

www.burrencollege.ie

For Here There Is No Place, acrylic on birch panel, 1.5m x 1.5m, 2018, Photo 3MB

For Here There Is No Place is an exhibition of work made in the Burren by Timothy Emlyn Jones over the last three years. The drawings enquire into the contemplative mode of attention that an apparently empty landscape or seascape can invoke, and they reflect the rich range of responses that emerge gradually when your attention departs from linguistic engagement in favour of the visual. The exhibition’s title, which is also the title of one the paintings, is taken from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke that addresses the transformative nature of surrender to looking.

The artist says of this forthcoming exhibition, “These drawings in paint have evolved out of decades of considering my art to be a process of enquiry into human consciousness, equanimity in this case. They are equally inspired by the visuality of the Burren, where I live, and by the proprioceptive act of mark making. Music and poetry are important to my work in the studio and I feel that may be evident in the work.”

The influence of poetry and music on this artist is in the ways they affect his attention in the process of drawing and painting. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that he was pleased when the composer Matthew Noone asked for the loan of some of his work as inspiration for a series of new compositions that take their title from the title painting. Dr Noone’s composition For Here There Is No Place, which takes its title from one of Tim’s paintings will have its premiere as a feature of the opening of this exhibition.

The title of a series of smaller works, Neither Here Nor There also comes from poetry, in that case Seamus Heaney’s. And another series Ever Here And There draws its inspiration from the same source. Without Impatience is a further series of performative drawings that derive from the mental state whereby one may progress beyond the duality of impatience and patience to a higher sense of being that reflects the humanist ethos of Jones’s outlook.

Timothy was educated at the Hornsey College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London, and the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, as well as at Cardiff Metropolitan University, and he was a member of Joseph Beuys’s Free International University. He has exhibited internationally such as in Amsterdam, Beijing, Beograd, Berlin, Budapest, Buenos Aires, Cheoung-ju, Dublin, Paris, Sao Paulo, Timisoara, Ulanbattar, Venice, and Wroclaw, as well as in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Galway, Dublin, Limerick, and London. He is represented in public collections in several countries including the Irish State Art Collection, NUI Galway, The UK Government Art Collection, The Royal Collection, London, the Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest; and Museu Banataliu in Romania. Other exhibitions in 2018 include the RHA Annual Exhibition as an invited artist, and several Salon group exhibitions at the Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin.

Having held professorships at Wimbledon College of Art, London and Glasgow School of Art, he moved to the Burren in 2003 to take the position of Dean at Burren College of Art, where he currently teaches part-time as Dean of Possibilities. He is an adjunct professor at NUI Galway. He was elected to the Royal Society of the Arts in London in 1986, to a visiting professorship at Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, China in 2001, and to the European Cultural Parliament in 2011. He became an Irish citizen in 2017. He lives in Kinvara where his studio is located.

For further information, contact Lisa Newman at lisa@burrencollege.ie or 065 7077200

TEJ is an invited artist at the RHA 188th Annual Exhibition 2018

Taibhse / Ghost, 1.5m x 1.5m, acrylic on birch panel. I feel honoured to have been invited for the second time to contribute a work to the RHA Annual Exhibition, Dublin and am grateful for this kindness.

Taibhse / Ghost at the RHA

H O W T O U S E Y O U R E Y E S: 2 0 1 8

observation, experimental drawing and self-discovery

with Professor Timothy Emlyn Jones

Monday – Friday 13th – 17th August 2018

You don’t need lots of art experience if you are open to adventure, experiment and play, and are not looking for a formal course of instruction in basic drawing skills, which you will find elsewhere.

Course Description

Visual art is always about the act of looking, and no matter what you are looking at what you come to see in art reveals something of yourself. This short course is about the act of observation and self-recognition, explored through the act of drawing.

This intensive workshop will help you to explore the acts of looking and seeing by means of drawing on location in the Burren and in the college studios. Rather than setting out to make pictures of what we see, we will explore different ways of looking – the gaze; the glance; the glimpse; and other ways of looking and seeing. We will also experiment with mark making ranging from wild scribble to measured marks to performative gesture. Our subject matter will include the land and its weather; the human figure at rest and in motion; interior spaces; found objects; the fall of light; and the fall of eyesight. There will also be an brief introduction to some of the theory of looking and cognitive difference. However, the core of this workshop will constantly be the nature of observing and drawing, and the discoveries to which they may lead.

This workshop is suited to anyone who wishes to deepen their understanding of observational drawing, artistic experiment, and the intelligence of play in the company of like-minded others. Previous experience is an advantage though but it is not essential, and beginners should be aware the workshop does not provide basic instruction in drawing techniques.

Each day will commence with a short introduction followed by either a visit to a selected location for field work, or studio work at the college (the weather will influence the schedule, which will be published on the first day). There will also be two short illustrated talks. Each participant will have dedicated studio space with access 24/7, with opportunities to work on a very large scale if desired.

Some comments by previous participants:

“I enjoyed your class more than I can tell you! You have veered me off into a whole new way of thinking about my art and about drawing. This was the best drawing experience of my life. I believe every artist should take this class at some point.” Anita O’Dwyer

“It was a cathartic experience in a wonderful and inspiring setting. For me it was a re-connection with the act of drawing with unobtrusive guidance from Tim. I would highly recommend it to all creative souls.” Brigid Corcoran

“To spend a week at the Burren College of Art is a retreat for both body and soul. The practical drawing exercises, reflective conversations, Tim’s interesting lectures, your own beautiful studio to work in and the spectacular surroundings of the Burren come together to make a perfect combination for an artist who needs an injection of fresh stimulation in new surroundings. Tim’s calm personality, inspirational guidance and creative approach to drawing provide an energy that is impossible to resist.” Liz Nilsson

“My students now enjoy my drawing class – at last!” Geraldine O’Brien

This workshop is open to a maximum of 16 participants

Further details at: www.burrencollege.ie/programmes

Applications to Julia Long at Julia@burrencollege.ie 065 7077200

Burren College of Art, Newtown Castle, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, Ireland

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TIMOTHY EMLYN JONES IS EXHIBITING TWO MONOPRINTS: “AFTER POSTSCRIPT 1” AND “AFTER POSTSCRIPT 2” IN:

ONE-OFF | THE MASTERS | MONOPRINT

8 – 19 NOVEMBER 2017

THE BANKSIDE GALLERY,

Thames Riverside | 48 Hopton Street | London | SE1 9JH | next to Tate Modern

‘The Masters’ is a series of annual exhibitions established by the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers focusing on a particular branch of printmaking each year. This year’s exhibition will be curated by

Morgan Doyle RE and will showcase works using monoprint in a variety of forms.

http://www.banksidegallery.com/exhibitions/166

W I T H O U T I M P A T I E N C E

an exhibition by Timothy Emlyn Jones

Wednesday 31st May 2017 – end of September/early October 2017

(closing date to be confirmed).

The Staff Club, NUI Galway, University Road, Galway.

Located in the Quadrangle, open 9am – 4pm, Mondays – Fridays

All welcome

H O W T O U S E Y O U R E Y E S: 2 0 1 7

observation, experimental drawing and self-discovery

with Professor Timothy Emlyn Jones

Monday – Friday 21st -25th August 2017

There are again be two workshops in 2017 and early registration is recommended, since both dates were fully subscribed in 2016, and the May 2017 workshop was again fully subscribed. You don’t need lots of art experience if you are open to adventure, experiment and play, and are not looking for a formal course of instruction in basic drawing skills, which you will find elsewhere.

Course Description

Some comments by previous participants:

“My students now enjoy my drawing class – at last!” Geraldine O’Brien

This workshop is open to a maximum of 16 participants

Further details at: www.burrencollege.ie/programmes

Applications to Julia Long at Julia@burrencollege.ie 065 7077200

Burren College of Art, Newtown Castle, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, Ireland

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AN E N Q U I R Y I N T O T H E T U R N I N G O F T H E W O R L D

Galway International Arts Festival, 2016

Impressions Book Art Exhibition

Friday 8th July 2016 at 5pm

and Thursday 14th July 2016 3pm

Centre for Creative Arts and Media, GMIT

“An Enquiry Into The Turning Of The World” is a series of performative wash drawings inspired by an experience of the midwinter sun at Newgrange. TEJ has committed to making one for each day of the year in an infinite series of which there are about 1200 drawings to date, the total being limited by the duration of the artist’s life. Selections of the series have previously been exhibited at the International Exhibition of Artists’ Books, Cheong-ju in Korea and at 126 Galway. Presented in the Impressions Book Exhibition 2016, the drawings form the core of a performance in which the artist Elaine Mackey collaborates.

http://www.impressionsbiennial.com/#!programme/e6pk3

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H O W T O U S E Y O U R E Y E S

observation, experimental drawing and self-discovery

with Professor Timothy Emlyn Jones

Monday – Friday 16^th-20th May 2016

Monday – Friday 15^th-19th August 2016

This workshop is being offered twice in 2016 since last year it was oversubscribed and some applicants were disappointed

Course Description

Visual art is always about the act of looking and no matter what the apparent subject matter, what you come to see in art reveals an aspect of yourself. This short course is about the act of observation and self-recognition, explored through the act of drawing.

This intensive workshop will help you to explore the acts of looking and seeing by means of drawing on location in the Burren and in the college studios. Rather than setting out to make pictures of what we see, we will explore different ways of looking – the gaze; the glance; the glimpse; and others. We will also experiment with mark making ranging from wild scribble to measured marks to performative gesture. Our subject matter will include the land and its weather; the human figure at rest and in motion; interior spaces; found objects; and the fall of light. There will also be an brief introduction to some of the theory of looking and cognitive difference. However, the core of this workshop will constantly be the nature of observing and drawing, and the discoveries to which they lead.

This workshop is suited to a wide range of artists, teachers and students who wish to deepen their understanding of observational drawing and artistic experiment in the company of like-minded others. Previous experience is an advantage though not essential, but beginners should be aware the workshop does not provide basic instruction in drawing skills.

Each day will commence with a short introduction followed by either a visit to a selected location for field work, or studio work at the college (the weather will determine the details of the schedule, which will be available on the first day). There will also be two short illustrated talks. Each participant will have dedicated studio space with access 24/7, with opportunities to work on a very large scale if desired.

Some comments by previous participants:

“My students now enjoy my drawing class – at last!” Geraldine O’Brien

This workshop is open to a maximum of 16 students

For further details: www.burrencollege.ie/programmes a

or Julia Long at Julia@burrencollege.ie 065 7077200

Burren College of Art, Newtown Castle, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare, Ireland

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“The PhD in Studio Art Revisited,” and “The Studio Art Doctorate in America,” two essays just published in Artists With PhDs Second Edition, edited by James Elkins

These two essays by TEJ have been published in Artists With PhDs, Second Edition, edited by James Elkins, New Academia, May 2014 and available through Amazon.

The former essay is a substantial rewrite of The PhD in Studio Art that appeared in the first edition of this book in 2009. Only five years on and the subject of art PhDs has transformed almost beyond recognition, and this new paper reflects those changes in providing an up to date overview of the subject (the first of its kind when first published). The latter essay is an update of the first edition, looking at the opportunities for doctorates in the US to be developed differently from those elsewhere, such as in the UK.