RNLI Cornwall Kurt Jackson
KURT JACKSON Editions 2023 for Caroline
The RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) is the charity that saves lives at sea. It does this by providing, on call, a 24-hour lifeboat search and rescue service and a seasonal lifeguard service, across the UK & ROI.
Volunteers are the heart of the RNLI and make up 95% of its people. They are ordinary people who do extraordinary things and without them the RNLI couldn’t save lives at sea.
The RNLI is honoured to have its work in Cornwall celebrated in this extensive exhibition of Kurt Jackson’s work, it being a charity that we know is close to the hearts of Kurt and his family.
There are 14 lifeboat stations around the coasts of Cornwall & Isles of Scilly, with eight All Weather Lifeboats and thirteen Inshore Lifeboats, crewed and supported by over 600 operational volunteers. In addition, during the summer season the RNLI provides a seasonal lifeguard service on 59 beaches around the Cornish coast. But behind these resources there is a larger team of volunteers across Cornwall providing fundraising support, running its shops, showing visitors around its stations and providing water safety advice, all contributing to the charity’s aim to save lives around our coasts.
In 2024 the RNLI will celebrate its 200th anniversary, having saved 143,900 people since the charity launched
its first lifeboat in 1824. The RNLI memorial in Poole records the names of over 800 people who have paid the ultimate price and lost their lives while trying to save others.
It is fantastic news that the Jackson Foundation Gallery have provided the RNLI space in its upper gallery to explore the work of the RNLI in Cornwall as seen through the lens of the camera over the last two hundred years. These photographs provide a unique view of the RNLI’s development in Cornwall through the eyes of various photographers and their ever-changing techniques.
I spend a lot of my time watching and being aware of the many moods and states of the Cornish seas. see her anger and deceiving calm, her currents and depths. There is a phenomenal beauty leading to a desire to be close, within touching distance, to get in the water, but it deserves respect; there is a fickleness and unpredictability, an unknown quality that can easily catch you out. can swim reasonably well but know my limits, don’t take risks. know by being alongside, in the shallows, on the surface, on the coast path or sat watching while I paint, making my marks, there is always potential for a mishap. try not to take this place for granted but I know if something does go wrong (when distracted, in the depths of painting, a little slip, a loose rock, the unexpected wave…) the lifeguards and lifeboat crews are there. Equally, it is reassuring to know that my family, friends and the wider community are also being watched over.
And so, I want to thank the RNLI. This project is my acknowledgement of their dedication, their hard work, their sacrifice and their care. salute the RNLI.
stand on the old quay and stare out over the fishing fleet moored in the summer sunshine.
I’m at the quiet end of the harbour, this pier is now largely disused with only a few old vintage sailing boats and some derelict old hulks tied up to the granite bollards. Over there though, down the other end, all is busy, noisy and crowded. The lifeboat sits glowing in its orange livery amongst the mass of fishing boats – a forest of metal spars, masts, bows, winches, poles, booms and gaffs rising from the decks in a complicated lattice of white, black and blue with dashes of red and yellow. How to paint this complexity? Maybe it’s a matter of finding a shorthand, a new language of marks replicated across the harbour and reflected in the blue water. need a repeating motive that to the eye reads as a crowded marina.
Gulls scream, boat engines rumble, crews cut and grind with their noisy tools, conversations carry across the water from fishing folk aboard boats in one direction and from the gaggle of drinkers outside the Red Lion in the other. The scent of old fish, diesel and exhaust is carried on the breeze.
NewlynAll of us who live, work or play on the coast or larger rivers are reliant on the RNLI for our safety. We may be unaware, ignore or be in denial of their service and patrols, but they are there for us.
The lifeboat sits there still and confident, waiting for her call amongst the busy chaos. That is my focus, my subject - the one orange craft shining bright in the midst of all my dashes, blobs and strokes of boat structurevibrant in the sun against the backdrop of the rooftops of Newlyn, yellow and ochre with lichen on the hillside above the harbour.
stand on the quay using the old granite wall as my easel and find that time speeds by; the tide flows in, boats come and go, a big shoal of mullet splash in the shallows below me. I concentrate and get lost in my painting.
St Mary’s Harbour, Scilly
Several mornings I crawled from my bed, briefly washed my eyes clear and strolled down to the harbour as dawn was breaking. Early enough to beat the hustle and bustle of the crowds searching for their boats and launches to the off islands. The only people around were the bright neon workers loading and unloading on the quay. I keep my head down and walk behind the containers to the furthest point on the pier.
Here behind a container for protection from the inevitable squalls, I am at the nearest point to the lifeboat’s
moorings, rocking up and down and swinging around the buoy she was tied to. The Whiteheads set in her orange navy uniform waits patiently. wanted to paint her with all the other boats the sailing boats, launches and fishing boats, all those different shaped crafts floating alongside her in the early morning light.
squat down and spread my gear around me to sit, leaning against the base of a post, although still not exactly comfortable. The rain does come in and put up an umbrella. I angle it in one hand and paint with the other with the painting on my lap trying to slide off or blow away. I try to concentrate on the matter in hand without losing my different materials or getting washed away.
Tricky, but I always argue that the elements contribute to the mark making by removing the predictability and introducing surprises and accidents. The paint goes on and comes off. The rain stops, the sun breaks through, lighting up the water surface and silhouetting the boats. The lifeboat is off to the left her orange upper decks delineated by light; the other boats all become solid dark blocks against the sunlight, their masts and gantries penetrating the land and skyline behind.
Dramatic but dynamic, fast moving light shifts, vanishes, returns. I have to compromise, find a direction but be flexible in the painting’s approach - it all changes each moment with the rain, wind and sun. try to get to the point where am almost happy but realise that I still have to make it back along the quay without the painting being washed away by one final squall. So, I grab my moment, it feels like another compromise.
At the end of the week, I have a series of these small studies, each slightly different, shaped by the varying weather, the changing flotilla and myself - my different energies, attitude and wakefulness.
Summer solstice
A warm sunny day spent on the Penlee slipway painting, looking out across the bay towards the Mount. stand alone just outside the big, closed double doors of the lifeboat station, no one can reach the slip from the coast except via the boathouse. Two swimmers stop briefly to rest but they are my only visitors. Boats pass frequently but that’s it, I’m alone on this busy coast. The sea is blue and calm, slow in its movements, the boats’ wakes cast a few ripples to catch the sunlight, a deep dark blue except where the slip is visible beneath the sea’s surface in its
aquamarine and turquoise shallows. The slip is a concrete structure of rectangular geometric repeating forms in white, grey and rusting orange, bright in the sunshine. The sun moves across on its arc, slanting the shadows from me, my easel and the boat shed. The gulls cry, warblers above on the cliff sing, flies and bees buzz past –a summer soundtrack. The slip sits still, vacated, now unused, a memorial to that last hurried departure. My watercolour splashes at my feet will soon be washed away by the cleansing cleaning surf and tides.
Sennen practice launch
At first, she creeps slowly
Slips to slide
Inching out of the boathouse
Emerging into the sea air
Like some nervous animal exiting her lair
Suddenly she speeds up
The momentum gathering
Till full tilt
She flies down the slipway
To hit the sea in a splashing climax
Of bright orange
And royal blue and white foam
Spume and suds
With the same exhilaration
From watching a firework burst into flower
Or a whale breaching
Brief but spectacular
A freed force
This impact of splashdown
Sea, gravity, speed, boat
Before the engine’s revs fill the air
And she leaves us
Kurt Jackson
Penlee
The old Penlee Lifeboat Station sits on the road between Newlyn and Mousehole at the cliff edge. Inside it is a big space – empty, a void where the boat should be. It’s all ramps, levels, steps and slopes; the third steepest ramp in the UK. The slipway leads down and out through ancient huge bi-folding wooden doors. Everything is blue, red, white, and orange with RNLI flags everywhere. The walls are covered with photos, lists of rescues, records of boats and mariners and crews and dates, plaques, celebrants, heroes. Like on a boat, all is tacky with salt to the touch.
Frozen in time, the boat left, never to return.
The big old doors that the old man and I pushed and pulled half open to give me light and a view out are 30-foothigh and these days looking a bit rotten with peeling paint, rusting hinges and bolts. The slipway is still largely intact; a bit of wear and tear from wave damage, it points down and out into Mounts Bay’s blueness with the Mount distant over there and Penzance glowing in the sunshine with a hazy horizon above the open sea.
paint all day on my own with the sound of the waves and the wind in the gutters as a soundtrack. Fishing boats bound for and from Newlyn pass with loud thumping engines, horns blaring, the wash of the waves. At high tide the waves rise up the slip, their heights and their breaking cutting off or adding to the light entering the big doorway. People visit to pay their respects, clutching flowers, in their best dresses and slacks, walking silently, gazing, thinking. Quietly I try to concentrate on the work, to not think too much about what happened here, the missing, the loss, the pain, the disaster. But it is always there, and it should be, it must be in the paintings, that reason, never to be forgotten. That sacrifice.
Kurt Jackson
For the duration of RNLI Cornwall’s exhibition period (between March and August 2023), the Jackson Foundation will hold a prize draw to win Sennen flowing tide with each ticket purchased equalling one entry and the winner randomly selected at the exhibition’s conclusion.
100% of proceeds from the Sennen flowing tide prize draw will be donated to support the invaluable work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the charity that saves lives at sea.
Tickets and information are available from the Jackson Foundation website at www.jacksonfoundationgallery.com/RNLI-draw or by scanning the QR code.
Lifejacket Bags
Refugees have fled conflicts and persecution since time immemorial. In a destabilized and unequal world, they will continue to do so. Climate emergency will make many people’s homelands unviable and more people will be on the move than ever before. Of that there is little doubt.
In 2015 and 2016 over one million refugees headed towards Europe from places like Syria, Afghanistan, and many African countries, taking hostile, dangerous and exploited journeys to seek sanctuary, by any means available.
This involved, for most, crossing the short but treacherous Aegean Sea channel between Turkey and the Greek island of Lesvos, in overloaded, flimsy, inflatable dinghies. They wore the now familiar, ultra-brightly coloured, (but usually fake and lethal) lifejackets, carrying their remaining personal possessions, often jettisoned to try to prevent sinking. Many could not swim. Despite all the dangers most survived the crossing, but tragically many did not. These waters, as elsewhere in the Mediterranean, have become an unmarked graveyard for thousands of people, unidentified and unrecovered. Others who were recovered were laid to rest on the island in makeshift graves, hidden amongst the ancient olive groves.
Many found their way from the degrading detention camps on Lesvos to the Greek mainland, and made the arduous walk to northern Europe where Germany above all welcomed a million refugees, but most other countries remained either indifferent or hostile, the United Kingdom included. In 2022 and continuing, many who had made their way to the northern French coast to try to reach their families and communities in the UK found they had to once again risk their lives in dangerous boats, there being no other means of entering the UK either safely or officially, to claim asylum.
Members of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) and of other volunteer sea rescue groups have risked their lives to save refugees in the busy, dangerous English Channel as well as the Mediterranean. They have been harassed, prevented from disembarking their rescued passengers, had vessels impounded and been prosecuted for their humanitarian work, in Greece, in Italy and elsewhere. The seas have become prohibited spaces for human rights defenders. Our compassion for people in distress at sea has been
About Kurt Jackson
transformed into hostility and abuse, including against highly respected organizations like the RNLI. Government reactions have been to punish those taking such dangerous journeys and those who come to their assistance rather than establish safe and legal routes.
I n the winter of 2015 our newspapers and TV screens were filled with images of lifejackets along the shorelines of Europe and piled like mountains on rubbish dumps, alongside the remains of shipwrecked boats. These vivid life-jackets became seared on the retina and synonymous with the human misery of those fleeing the conflict zones of the world. But one particular project turned these symbols of distress into symbols of hope and at the same time provided an income and a source of funding for refugees and projects supporting refugees on Lesvos. Salvaged, abandoned, life-jackets were reclaimed and transformed, by refugees themselves, incorporating other conventional textiles, into beautiful hand-made bags of all shapes, sizes and uses, at the Mosaik Support Centre in Mytilini, the capital city of Lesvos, as part of the ‘Safe Passage’ campaign. They remind us of the individuals who had to wear them, who risked their lives and who survived to seek a safer life. They remind us of all those who did not make it.
Kurt’s exhibition of paintings, poetry and this installation of ordinary yet totally extraordinary objects, are powerful expressions of solidarity and witness amidst the loud noises of hostility. They are a reminder to us all of our inherent duty to come to the rescue of all those in distress, of their personal stories, as unique as each of these handmade bags, not just another statistic but real people, with ordinary lives, people just like ourselves, who one day had to flee, risking everything they had.
Syd Bolton and Catriona Jarvis Founders and Directors The Last Rights Project www.lastrights.netA dedicated environmentalist and true polymath, Jackson’s holistic approach to his subject seamlessly blends art and politics providing a springboard to create a hugely varied body of work unconstrained by format or scale.
Jackson’s artistic practice ranges from his trademark visceral plein-air sessions to studio work and embraces an extensive range of materials and techniques including mixed media, large canvases, print-making and sculpture.
The son of artists, Jackson was born in Blandford, Dorset in 1961. While studying Zoology at Oxford University he spent most of his time painting and attending courses at Ruskin College of Art. On gaining his degree he travelled extensively and independently, painting wherever he went before putting down roots in Cornwall with his wife Caroline in 1984.
Jackson’s focus on the complexity, diversity and fragility of the natural world has led to artist-in-residencies on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, the Eden Project and for nearly 20 years Glastonbury Festival which has become a staple of his annual working calendar
Over the past thirty years Jackson has had numerous art publications released to accompany his exhibitions. Five monographs on Jackson have been published by Lund Humphries depicting his career so far; A New Genre of Landscape Painting (2010), Sketchbooks (2012), A Kurt Jackson Bestiary (2015) and Kurt Jackson’s Botanical Landscape (2019) Kurt Jackson’s Sea (2021). A Sansom & Company published book based on his touring exhibition Place was released in 2014.
Jackson regularly contributes to radio and television and presents environmentally informed art documentaries for the BBC and was the subject for an award-winning BBC documentary, A Picture of Britain.
He has an Honorary Doctorate (DLitt) from Exeter University and is an Honorary Fellow of St Peter’s College, Oxford University. He is an ambassador for Survival International and frequently works with Greenpeace, Surfers Against Sewage, Friends of the Earth and Cornwall Wildlife Trust. He is a patron of human rights charity Prisoners of Conscience and is an academician at the Royal West of England Academy.
