JEMMA POWELL
The entire exhibition can be viewed online at www.cricketfineart.co.uk
Exhibition dates: 5 th - 21 st October 2022
requests the pleasure of your company at the
Oil on board 50 × 75 cm
Childhood Memories
Like Avery and those equally singular artists, Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse, Jemma Powell is above all a colourist. In her poetics, colour (or rather, the relations between colours) conjures both textural atmosphere and a subtly worked interplay of structural matters of near and far, the horizontal and the vertical, the diagonal and the tangential. What runs through the breathing whole – and the art of Jemma Powell is above all a rhythmically vibrant art of
JEMMA POWELL
Little Boy on the Beach
In the summer of 2019, was invited to give a lecture at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester to complement the Ivon Hitchens retrospective Space Through Colour. Eschewing a PowerPoint presentation and referencing actual paintings, my talk was called Making Paint Sing. A lyrical, broadly handled yet intimately cast garden scene by Jemma Powell was central to my theme. The Pallant House audience were of one mind: here indeed was paint(ing) that sang.
lucidity and space – is the sort of lyrical or musical quality which cannot but invite the creative participation of the viewer’s imagination.
Here is the reverie, the open-eyed dreaming, which meant so much to Gaston Bachelard – that ‘poetics of space’ which furnished the late French philosopher with the ability to sense those things which, far from the ‘grande-monde’ disdained by his compatriot Prévert, might deepen our capacity to cherish life: the infinite in the intimate, the stilled potency of silent music, and – above all – the love that lies at the core of any truly creative endeavour, such as we encounter in this splendid exhibition.
© Photograph by Jubie Balfour
Michael Tucker
Tuesday 4 th October 20226–8pm
SEARCHING FOR STILLNESS
PRIVATE VIEWof CRICKET FINE ART
As her chief elective affinity Ivon Hitchens did, Jemma works ‘en plein air’. Initial responses are developed in the studio, mostly in oil on board, with memory and the sensations of being in particular places essential to a painterly sensibility as bold as it is tender. The work evolves intuitively. Jemma applies and wipes off paint, reapplies it with a brush or palette knife, scrubs the surface and even uses her fingers to conjure expressive marks. “I like the so-called mistakes that can occur. Often they can be be the most exciting part of a painting, as things start to appear and the work takes on a life of its own.” As the ‘American Fauve’ Milton Avery had it, “In order to paint, one has to go by the way one does not know. Art is like turning corners. One never knows what is around the corner until one has made the turn.”
Oil on board 53 × 42 cm £1,950
£2,750 back cover
Paintings are for sale on receipt of this catalogue
The Art of Jemma Powell
Jemma Powell is an Oxfordshire-based artist who lives with her husband, singer-songwriter Jack Savoretti, and their three children and three dogs. Pitched intriguingly between figuration and abstraction, Searching for Stillness – Jemma’s first solo show – sustains throughout a register as contemplative as it is joyous. There are freely treated flower paintings and works rooted in her love of the Oxfordshire landscape as well as pieces triggered by trips to Italy’s Ligurian coast and Morocco.
LONDON at 2 Park Walk, London SW 10 0 AD
c’est quand il n’ y a pas grande-monde qu’ il y a grand-chose Jacques Prévert
The art which is to be relished in Searching for Stillness is as pleasing to the eye as it is stimulating to soul and spirit. Georges Braque, ostensibly a most ‘material’ painter, offered the transformative insight that, “The vase gives form to the void, as music does to silence.” Similarly, the art of Jemma Powell has the sort of double-edged resonance which can speak (or rather, sing) of matters both material and metaphysical.
Jemma attended Bristol University and has a BA in Drama and a Diploma in acting from the Oxford School of Drama. For twenty years she worked successfully as an actress. “I enjoyed exploring and experimenting with the craft and the expressive possibilities of acting but painting always allowed me to go that little bit further. And now I feel such freedom! Life is so fast-paced today that painting has become of primal importance to me, my way of searching for calm amidst the chaos. When paint, at root am searching for stillness, as a way to get deeper into the nature of things – especially the often unnoticed, seemingly little things – as well as myself.”
front cover (detail)
Michael Tucker is a lecturer, curator, jazz critic and painter. Until his retirement in 2012 he was Professor of Poetics at the University of Brighton. The author of Dreaming With Open Eyes: The Shamanic Spirit In Twentieth-Century Art And Culture and Jan Garbarek: Deep Song he has written about a range of British painters, musicians and poets, including Alan Davie, Ivon and John Hitchens, Andrzej Jackowski, Ian McKeever, Tommy Smith and Kenneth White.
In the eulogy which he delivered for Avery in 1965, Mark Rothko spoke of those who are “born to sing”. As her art testifies, Jemma Powell is one such. Her mother, Lucy Powell, is an accomplished painter and art has long been central to Jemma’s life. But it took her some time before she realised that painting was her true creative path.
Annabelle Hydrangeas
Oil on board 76 × 102 cm £4,250
2 3 Golden Autumn Oil on board 49 × 75 cm £2,750
4 5
Early Evening Prayers from the Rooftops of Marrakesh Oil on board 76 × 102 cm £4,250
£2,750
£1,750
Through the Blossom at Dawn Oil on board 51 × 76 cm
Pondering by the Peaceful Pond Oil on board 30 × 38 cm
6 7
£2,100
cm £2,100
Stormy Boccadasse, Italy
Weeping Willow in Autumn
Blowing in the Wind
8 9
Oil on board 76 × 102 cm
Oil on board 32 × 75
£4,250
Oil on board 35 × 75 cm
10 11 Water Meadow at Thyme Oil on board 76 × 102 cm £4,250 In the Still of the Night, Portofino Oil on board 60 × 54 cm £2,500
Italian Amongst Umbrella
12 13
Church
Trees Oil on board 76 × 102 cm £4,250
14 15 Water Meadow at Dawn Oil on board 76 × 102 cm £4,250 Autumn Flowers on Pink Stripey Tablecloth Oil on board 43 × 37 cm £1,750
16 17
Umbrellas in the Market, Morocco on board 42 × 75
Oil
cm £2,500
cm £1,950
Oil
Water Meadow at Dawn II on board 42 × 46
Christmas
Teapot, Pears and Paperwhites Oil on board 74 × 100 cm £4,250
18 19
20 21 Winter Gave Me Flowers Oil on board 68 × 50 cm £2,500 Into the Autumn Leaves Oil on board 76 × 102 cm £4,250
£1,750
22 23
Oil on board 46 × 35 cm
£1,850
Sweet Peas from Connie
Sweet Peas in Sunlight
Pink Cyclamens
Oil on board 39 × 32 cm
Oil on board 39 × 43 cm
£1,750
£1,850
Oil on board 40 × 40 cm
Grape Hyacinths in Terracotta Pot
Madre Neutte (Mother of the Night)
Oil on × 95
24 25
board 66
cm £3,900
That Sunday, That Summer
Oil on board 35 × 46 cm £1,850
Midday Medina
Woman in Pink with her Goats, Morocco
Oil on board 56 × 39 cm
£1,950
£2,100
Oil on board 60 × 50 cm
26 27
28 29 A Quiet Place at the End of the Garden Oil on board 41 × 66 cm £2,100 Into the Blue Oil on board 49 × 75 cm £2,750 Lunch with Lucy Oil on board 74 × 87 cm £3,900
Midnight Medina
Oil on board 68 × 50 cm £2,500
Still Dreaming of Umbrella Trees
Oil on board 36 × 72 cm £2,100
30 31
32 33 Missing You Oil on board 45 × 45 cm £1,950 The River Oil on board 76 × 102 cm £4,250
34 35 Celeste's Flowers Oil on board 86 × 72 cm £3,250 Pink Hyacinths in Chinois Pot Oil on board 76 × 55 cm £2,750 Portofino by Night Oil on board 51 × 74 cm £2,750
36 Falling Tulips in Wedgwood Vase Oil on board 76 × 102 cm £4,250 Dinner for Two Oil on board 27 × 33 cm £1,650
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