Liam Jones
Liam Jones was born in Ballina, Co. Mayo. The wild beauty of the surrounding countryside was a powerful catalyst in moving him into the world of landscape painting.He is widely travelled having worked in Europe and America, but he was continually drawn back to this country and to the West of Ireland in particular.
He held his first one-man exhibition in Dublin over thirty years ago. Since then he has been recording, in a personal way, the ever-changing moods and light of the West.
“Aerach” is a word that could describe his work. There is a wonderful sense of space in these paintings, a tranquillity where nothing is hurried.
He moves effortlessly from the small detail, such as the door of the shed, to wide panoramas. In doing so, he shows us some conic images such as Sunset, Ballyconeely and Seamist, Sky Road, but most of the images in this collection reflect his motto, “Within the ordinary lies the extraordinary”.
These landscapes have a timeless quality and are beautifully illuminated by the sun peeking through moving clouds, creating dramatic sky.
The artist himself says of this collection “no Poet, no Painter can ever fully capture all that is contained in the landscape. In fleeting moments when our pride takes a grip we feel we have it – we’ve got it, but then the landscape merely changes and invites us further in. The landscape surely is a reflection of the divine. It is eternal. As a humble Painter I can only stand in awe, in reverence before it and merely scratch at its surface.”
The Sea - the cradle of all life - has always held a special fascination for me. There is never a more ‘connecting’ experience than to sit at the sea shore and gaze out into its eternal majesty and simply ‘be’.
For this exhibition I wanted to predominantly feature aspects of the sea’s interaction with our landscape.
The tide regularly invades and covers our coast line, lingers a while and withdraws. With each visit it sculpts and shapes our shoreline in a minute, imperceptible way, gradually transforming the contours of our coast - a divine repetition, and good for the soul.
As the sea recedes the fissured rocks coated in ochre and rust-hued weeds with explosions of yellows, beg the artist to paint them. Through 2008 I spent several months immersed in the landscape at Innishnee observing the motion of the sea and its low-tide revelations. I hope I have captured in some small way this finger print of Connemara and our lives.
I have also included in this show some other coastal areas of Ireland and some land locked landscapes where light chases shadows to create a continually changing harmonious beauty. Special thanks to Angela and Rebecca who allowed me the time and space to present you with this collection.
Liam Jones, January 2009