Frenchman's Creek (2019)

In this breathtaking new body of work, leading contemporary artist Kurt Jackson immerses himself – sometimes literally – in a tributary of the Helford River, an area of Atlantic temperate rainforests. A unique landscape of sessile oak woodlands meeting the tide that famously inspired Daphne du Maurier’s 1941 novel Frenchman’s Creek.

 

This is a fragile place, a delicate and ancient piece of land and water – a beautiful place to linger, watch and witness; the slow tides and seasonal shifts in dress. The wet mud reflects the foliage or lack of it above, but below the fallen oak branches and trunks are always present – charcoal and umber strands snaking across my composition. 

 All is worthy of capture and celebration on my boards and paper and canvas, on the page on my lap or back in the studio.  - Kurt Jackson