Open Studio: Artist Val Jones

Val Jones is a recent resident artist at Maketank as part of Visual Arts Mentorship Programme.  This is her first open studio in time for holidays ! Val's work encompasses 3 main different media: oil painting, printmaking and acrylics.  Check out her website www.valjones.co.uk

Artists Statement:

"Topographical images interest me. I am drawn not to the accurate, descriptive qualities of an outside landscape but to an inner landscape that transcends description yet is highly expressive, being more concerned with a feeling for a place. I enjoy contrasts: looseness and precision, lightness and darkness, the microscopic and macroscopic. I enjoy shimmering colour and the drama of black against vibrant colour. Monotypes, the most painterly form of Printmaking, enables this. As the name suggests, each one is unique. Using printing ink and rollers an image is created on a steel plate and transferred to paper by being pulled through an etching press. I sometimes add ‘chine colle’, silver or gold leaf, when I wish to emphasise the mineral quality of the earth. The starting point for my monotypes may be landscape, lines or colours seen and recorded in my sketchbook or my mind. The work then takes a journey of its own, revealing its own dynamic until completion. The term ‘landscape artist’ to me seems imprecise. I am finding more satisfaction in moving towards abstraction, striving to produce work that reveals feelings that transcend the immediate landscape. I endeavour to express the inexpressible."