Pete Jackman: Icelandic Horizons with Sculpture by Peter Hayes

About

The Icelandic landscape has a pristine, raw and dynamic quality, looking brand new and ancient at the same time. It is physically and visually challenging, this informs Pete Jackman's mark making and colour palette.

Pete's recent work is mostly concerned with the horizon; this is the dominant feature of the Icelandic landscape where the views to the horizon are not interrupted by small scale features such as trees buildings, this distance has the effect of making the impression of the landscape something unapproachable and removed. In contrast, and in a sense of relief, other work is more concerned with the small-scale forms of boulders, pebbles & vegetation.

This work represents Pete's interpretation and reactions to particular places and forms within the landscape. It is developed from sketches, photographs and memories, which through stages of drawings and over drawing using layers or various media tend to become more abstract as the work evolves. As each piece progresses the work becomes its own reference, where the original source image may just be represented in the form of a particular shape, texture or colour.

The drawings are created with layers of graphite, soft pastels, and chalks, these layers may then be cut through to expose earlier marks, with further overdrawing and colouring to create a more complex surface, a similar process of layering is also involved in the paintings, but due to the medium the emphasis is on overpainting and glazes.

Pete's paintings will be presented with master ceramist Peter Hayes, known for his timeless, distinctive style that stems from Raku firing and the way which he submerges his sculptures in the flowing river beside his studio, or sends them to Cornwall to be washed in the sea for months at a time. The water washes minerals such as copper and metal oxides into the basic white clay with which Hayes works, creating a characteristic green-blue "blush" in his sculptures along with random elements that make every piece unique. Hayes' work is then finished by waxing and polishing.