POPPY JONES
The Gardener who saw God
20/8/16 - 17/09/16
PRESS RELEASE
'I was in the garden near the long borders, when I saw God in the sky.'
Edward James, The Gardener Who Saw God (1937)
Several years ago, I came across a 1937 edition of the luxurious magazine, Minotaure, discarded from a University library, along with paperback books and empty book files. I later discovered Minotaure was sponsored and advised by an extremely wealthy and eccentric poet and passionate patron of the Surrealist Movement, Edward James. An archive containing James's own collection of letters, documents and artworks by artists including Leonara Carrington, Margritte, Dali and Man Ray, is now located at the Butlers Pantry at West Dean College, James's ancestral home. For three weeks last Spring I stayed at West Dean, exploring James's remarkable archive, when it was on the brink of being sold and dispersed.
Poppy Jones, 2016
'The Gardener Who Saw God' is an installation of new etchings, monotypes, digital prints on silk and tapestries by Poppy Jones. As an artist whose work focuses on different forms of printmaking, Jones's practice us concerned with the image, particularly via themes relating to history and representation, examining the makeup of images not only in terms of content but also materiality.