Drawings by acclaimed Sussex-based artist Jonathan Newdick are being shown during November at Kevis House Gallery in Petworth. The exhibition opens on Saturday 1 November and runs through to 29 November 2014.
Jonathan Newdick’s pictures are drawn in pencil and in ink, in a detailed and yet sparse style. The pictures in this show are studies of rural buildings and trees of West Sussex. The drawings are made outdoors, often in stormy weather.
Most of locations are around to Petworth, where Newdick lives and works in a rural location close to the River Rother.
Newdick explains the philosophy behind his work as follows:
Trees, buildings, the land. Each is inevitably connected to the other. It is a connection that goes far further than roots and foundations. There is a tangling of rocks and clay and fibres, but each of these is ultimately impermanent, even the rocks. My pictures ask people to look at things seemingly solid and here for ever, and know that they are not.
The pictures in this show are a natural progression from those drawn for his 2012 book Out of Time?, which focussed solely on buildings.
Andrew Loukes, the Curator of Collections and Exhibitions for the National Trust at Petworth House, and formerly Curator of Fine Art at Manchester Art Gallery, says:
Jonathan Newdick is an artist who deserves to be better known. All of Newdick’s work blends an obvious technical ability with an intelligent insight into his subject matter. Unsurprisingly, he is someone with an informed interest in the great artists who have trodden his patch - Turner and Constable - yet his drawing style is uniquely his own. Like his major forebears, though, he is a thoughtful interpreter of landscape, with the passing of time emerging as a consistent theme in his work. He is an artist whose work is both instantly engaging and resonant with meaning.
Prices for the pictures are from £500 - £700.
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