1 Person in 1 Page
For three decades, Timothy Emlyn Jones’ art practice has had drawing considered as a process of enquiry as its core. This has been supported by his longstanding fascination for innovative art education and creative writing, also seen as modes of enquiry. All three modes of his practice share a focus on investigative creative process as a defining characteristic of humanism.
After becoming the first practice-based research student at the Royal College of Art, and a member of Joseph Beuys’ Free International University, Timothy Emlyn Jones went on to become a pioneer of drawing as a process of enquiry, and soon after also a pioneer of doctorates in studio art.
He was a first generation performance artist presenting work across Europe in collaboration with, or alongside others, including Marina Abramovicz, Joseph Beuys, Ian Breakwell, Stuart Brisley, Jannis Kounellis, John Latham, Mario Merz, and Nigel Rolfe.
His many subsequent series of vast performative drawings exploring themes such as: universal human creativity; the existential celebration of emptiness; weather as a transformative metaphor for consciousness; and the conditions of equanimity have been exhibited internationally.
Early exhibitions of performance included: London Now In Berlin (Akademie der Kunst, Berlin); Documenta 6; Prospectiva; and Kontrapunkt, and more recent exhibitions of drawings have taken place in: Beijing; Cheong-ju; Galway; London; Limerick; Paris; Sydney; and Venice.
Currently the Dean of Possibilities at Burren College of Art, Ireland, he has been awarded professorships at Wimbledon School of Art, London; Glasgow School of Art/University of Glasgow; Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, China; and the National University of Ireland, Galway. He has also been a visiting speaker at MIT; Bauhaus Research School, Weimar; Cleveland Institute of Art; School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; the College of Fine Arts, Sydney (UNSW); and Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, NZ; and elsewhere.
As a student, he was awarded the Arts Council Prize at the Young Contemporaries 1970 and a scholarship to study at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, and more recently he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1986 (and elected a Life Fellow in 2016), and a member of the European Cultural Parliament in 2011.
His poetry and fiction has been published by New Departures, Penguin and Serpents Tail amongst others.
Copyright © Timothy Emlyn Jones 2020