Kurt Jackson The Cornish Seal An Reun Kernewek
KURT JACKSON Editions 2024
Kurt Jackson The Cornish Seal An Reun Kernewek
for Caroline
front cover Parallel world. 2023. mixed media on canvas 91.5 × 91.5 cm
Beached, fast asleep, eyes closed she dreams, fidgets, yawns and shivers. 2023. edition of 30, etching, plate size 30 × 23.5 cm
The Cornish Seal An Reun Kernewek
The driver of the parked car winds his window down. “Seen the seal?” We lower our binoculars, (my granddaughter’s new pink pair and my old pocket-sized pair) and we turn and smile at the bloke, giving him the thumbs up. The seal, just offshore, arches it's back, black and shiny with wet and dives below the surface only for it to reappear moments later. The massive dog head turns our way and seems to be fixed on us; it’s the only dark object in the pale flat sea. Moments pass in silence as our little group looks back and forth, briefly connected across our different worlds. Then the seal slips back below and we walk on along the coast path leaving the chap in his car behind, parked on the seafront.
A normal, almost everyday experience for anyone who spends time on the Cornish coast, seals seem to pop up whenever we look out to sea; are they looking for us? I can easily spend a day in the cove painting alone and the only real company I have all day is a curious seal just offshore. We have a decent population of Grey Seals
around Cornwall, they are a year-round sight, but one never tires of watching these huge bizarre beasts. I like the idea that there is this population of big social animals living alongside us, an almost parallel existence to our own. decided to spend the last few years dedicating as much time as possible watching, studying and trying to understand them – their form and movement, their haunts and habits and in turn create a body of work inspired by them. have looked from afar at their haul out sites and pupping coves. have waited for them to find me on coves and cliffs, listened to their mournful choirs on islands, studied them close up at Gweek and even swum with them (while trying to draw them underwater) in the open ocean.
We are lucky to have such big wild sea mammals so common around our coast and we should appreciate that, respect them, but keep our distance, give them space and leave areas unsullied and undisturbed for them to do their own thing.
Cove
February. decide it’s time to visit this well-known seal haunt. There is a strong north-west wind blowing, cold and blustery, it slows my pace as head out to the cliff across the neck of the headland. The wind catches my backpack and portfolio, tries to stop me, to turn me back. The Trust has put in a paved path for the herds of seal watchers that head this way. It leads straight to the cliff where a fence with signs along its length asks you not to cross, to keep quiet, that the seals need to sleep and to please walk away if your dog starts to bark. It seems almost zoo-like, this divide between the flat paved path where we are to stand with clean shoes and over, out, down there, the wild. Up here the cliffs fall away hundreds of feet to the churning roaring seas beating against the black rock. Down there the seals hang out, hauled up on the beach in their dozens, snoozing and snorting apparently unaware of us. choose to go to one end of the fence and lie down on the turf – I need to remain hidden from the seals so as not to be prominent on their skyline where could disturb them, but also away from the other visitors and out of the wind for me to paint. Lying sprawled on the cliff work on a big board alongside me, battling the wind and holding on to my gear. There must be 100 seals down there just above the
Over a hundred seals, tide rising. I can just hear their howling above the sound of the sea. 2023. mixed media on board 60 × 60 cm
tideline, lying like sunbathers, arranged semicircular across the sandy beach of the cove. Brown, pale, ochre, faun, black and grey, they are as varied in pelt colour as a herd of cheap mixed livestock from the cattle market up Truro. can just hear the groaning and yodelling, their grumbles and songs above the endless roaring of the surging surf. The tide is rising, causing the seals to slowly shuffle up the cove while some arrive and others leave, humping caterpillar-like on their tummies into the water where they darken to slide black and sleek through the white foam. This is a raw place, these North Cliffs, with the vertiginous heights, the shattered rock, mad pounding seas and those wild sea animals in their own oblivion. I scribble and scrape, apply my colours, layers of subdued white tones, the solid geology, moving seas and those diminutive seals in their social sanctuary. My unnatural position, my limb-aching sprawl, my own inelegant seal pose gives me grief and just like them I have to rearrange myself and adjust my lounging intermittently. Eventually, I decide there is enough information and marks on my board and I retreat with the squall that chases me away from the cliff just as high tide is reached. The last seals also leave, withdrawing back to their watery homes
Reun
On the beach
You are grub-like
Larval
Ungainly in your shuffling
Like kids in sleeping bags
Or tumbled sack racers
Grumpy humphing
Snorting
Howling
In discontent
But once in the water
You find your feet, your wings
All is elegant and sleek
You are in your element.
Eyes closed, fast asleep. 2023. mixed media on paper 30 × 20 cm
Seal heads. 2023. mixed media and collage on museum board 22 × 22 cm
Zawn
Last year Caroline spotted a group of seals lying together on a small inaccessible zawn beach below the cliffs. One damp mid-winter’s day I returned to try and paint them. Walking slowly along the coast path looking over the cliff edge tried to locate “Caroline’s Cove”. Eventually chose a likely location, at least it was paintable and seemed plausible –a secret beach. The weak winter sun shone briefly across a green lively sea, the surf breaking into foamy lines of geometric patterns at the foot of the cliffs. The odd seal did appear – in the shallows or floating, bottling on the surface, but it wasn't really what was hoping for.
Then I noticed a few cagoule-clad walkers standing on a stretch of coast path staring down the cliffs – it had to be the place. Once the visitors had moved on, I packed up and rapidly strolled over. It was a bit had missed before by shortcutting across the field.
Looking down the cliffs I saw a couple of huge pale brown seals hauled out on a patch of shingle and seaweed. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom in the shade of the tiny beach below, I saw more and more seals of different colours and sizes camouflaged to blend into the stones and rocks – brown, grey, black, blotched and marbled. I counted 25
all ranging from massive individuals to small pale mottled pups. As more arrived out of the sea the others would complain, shuffling to make space, howling and snorting loudly. Their beach was an ideal seal bolthole, with steep vertical cliffs on either side, sheltered from the winds and out of our reach, the spectators and the curious. Here hunkered down hidden in the stunted clifftop blackthorn and tried to make my marks in response.
To the Seal Islands
A beautiful summer’s day; a calm blue sea lies beneath the clear blue sky. I park on the clifftop and look out at the islands a quarter of a mile distant with my binoculars. I count six seals lying dormant on the rocks. As I get my gear together, I see a pair of binoculars pointing out of another car also on the clifftop; the owner, an older local bloke, obviously sits here daily watching for marine life. He assures me there's only the usual six seals out there (his glasses are more powerful than mine). I leave him to his scanning of the seas and clamber down the slope, pass the spoil tips and open mineshaft to find a sheltered spot in the heather and gorse. As make myself comfortable, the sun vanishes, the wind picks up and a fine mizzle comes in. put up my big fisherman’s umbrella and hunker down in the undergrowth. It's an offshore wind so I'm safely sheltered and can still look out to sea and the ‘Seal Islands’. As it gets wetter and wetter, the visibility worsens but I enjoy the challenge of painting the storm. know the seals are out there. I can't see them anymore, but that's normal. I like the idea that when I walk, drive or travel along the coast, that seals are out there in their own
homes, within potential sight, doing their own thing, living their parallel lives with their own daily routines, away from us, but nearby. Next to us. I paint into the storm and out of the other side, buffeted, blustered, a bit damp but satisfied with my efforts. I climb back up at the end of the day, in time to pick up my grandchildren from the primary school.
The wind is trying to blow me off the cliff to join the seals down there on the beach 600 foot below. 2023. mixed media on museum board 53 × 53 cm
Seal Show
Sunshine filled the cove
The sea cliffs shone sharp
And at the foot
Where the blue waters lay slack
The clear aquamarine shallows
Showed submarine seals
Fish fast, small
Above their own shadows
Paired in flight
They chased and spiralled at speed
Swimming over the sands
In a filmic vision
Of technicolour light
Down there on that distant big screen
Below this world
In their cinematic paradise.
Scilly
The boat came to rest just off the islands, around the back of the Eastern Isles, between Nornour and Ganilly. The anchor was dropped, and we sat in the blue waters rocking gently with the rhythm of the waves to survey our surroundings. 200 meters or so away was the beach of Ganilly. What I initially took to be boulders, I soon realized, was a mass of seals; a great writhing, wriggling rookery continually adjusting their positions and interacting with each other. Howling and yodelling, they were spread out along the semicircular arc of the beach, and the water between them and our boat was dotted with the heads of dozens of further individuals. This was ‘seal town’. I pulled my flippers on, my snorkel into place and dropped off the boat. Floundering around I righted myself, found my buoyancy and poise. My drawing board with clipped papers and pencils was passed overboard, and off I set. Rather clumsily, I peered into the depths below where strings of vertical orange and brown spaghetti weed led the eye 10 meters or so straight down through clear waters to the rocky bed. The weed swayed in the current, a few
small fish aimlessly swam past. Pale jellyfish floated around and then my first submarine seal appeared. Light grey, it approached from below. Sleek and speedy, it shot past. Big dark white-rimmed eyes examined me and then a mass of paddling flippers. It vanished only for another and another to roll and curve themselves around me, by my side, behind and below me. They blew bubbles, tried to nibble my drawing materials. Inquisitive, curious and slightly cautious; if I moved suddenly with my drawing, they backed off or even flitted away. I tried to draw, tentative lines through the blur of my mask and the water; wet absorbent paper and crumbling graphite. The seals returned continually, gambolling like excited puppies in herds – enjoying the sport of their aqua dynamics. I had to keep righting myself, adjusting myself; the board between my gloves caused an instability. The papers tried to float away; the pencils did float off intermittently. It was a battle under the gaze of a seal audience. felt motion sickness, was exhausted by the legacy of my recent Covid recovery. But swimming with these huge wild marine mammals
was all-consuming in the Atlantic wild, pushed and steered by the ebb and flow of the swell, the seal songs and swash of the waves as a soundtrack, the blue and green clarity below. All was extraordinary; these beautiful beasts hurtling around me. It was incredible and humbling – a truly beautiful experience. After an hour’s scribbling and snorkelling I was exhausted but satiated; with blunted pencils and creased, fraying papers, content to clamber back into the boat.
Small boat and big seal. 2023. mixed media on wood panel 60 × 60 cm
Me and the ravens look down on the seals. 2023. mixed media on museum board 30 × 30 cm
20 seals are down there, away from us lot. 2022. mixed media on museum board 30 × 30 cm
I can’t see them but I can hear the seals howling below me. 2023. mixed media on museum board 22 × 22 cm
Gannet, seal, gull, shag and pipit. 2022. mixed media on museum board 22 × 22 cm
At high water most seals leave the cove. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22 cm
20 seals below me. 2023. mixed media on museum board 22 × 22 cm
They lie there snorting and howling at each other. 2023. mixed media on museum board 22 × 22 cm
Swimming, splashing, mewing. 2023. mixed media and collage on paper 30 × 20 cm
Hauled out, eyebrows and whiskers. 2023. mixed media on paper 30 × 20 cm
She surfaces just below me. 2023. mixed media on museum board 22 × 22 cm
Pup 1. 2023.
monoprint plate size 22 × 20.5 cm
Pup, Constantine bay. 2023. edition of 30 drypoint plate size 22 × 20.5 cm
I watch the seal and the seal watches me. 2023. mixed media on canvas 170 × 170 cm
Seal. 2023
construction, slate, lead, hessian, driftwood. 13 × 18cm
Self portrait down the cove with the seal. 2023. construction, driftwood and mixed media 19 × 28cm
Watching the seal. 2023. construction, driftwood and mixed media 15 × 28cm
From the back of the beach, Porth Seal. Sea orache, rock samphire, plantain, thrift. 2023. mixed media on museum board 22 × 22 cm
From the back of the beach, Porth Seal. 2023. mixed media on paper 21 × 21 cm
About Kurt Jackson
A 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 pleinair 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 and an Honorary Fellow of Arts University Plymouth. 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.
Jackson Foundation
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info@kurtjackson.com
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First published in 2024 for the exhibition The Cornish Seal, An Reun Kernewek
Published by Kurt Jackson Editions in 2024 www.kurtjackson.com
isbn 978-1-9196521-9-1
Publication © Kurt and Caroline Jackson Ltd
All images, words and poetry © Kurt Jackson 2024
Portrait photography © Caroline Jackson 2024
Art Photography by Fynn Tucker and The Logical Choice
Catalogue design by Lyn Davies www.lyndaviesdesignfolio.com
Printed by Park Lane Press, Corsham, on fsc® certified paper, using fully sustainable, vegetable oil-based inks, power from 100% renewable resources and waterless printing technology.
Print production systems registered to iso 14001, iso 9001 and over 97% of waste is recycled.
KURT JACKSON Editions 2024
Jackson Foundation
f. cover Parallel world. 2023.
mixed media on canvas. 91.5 × 91.5cm. £24,000
2 Evening seal. 2023.
mixed media on museum board.
× 22cm. £3,500
3 Beached, fast asleep, eyes closed she dreams, fidgets etc. edition of 30. etching. plate size
30 × 23.5cm. £550
4 Over a hundred seals, tide rising. I can just hear their howling etc. mixed media on board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
5 Eyes closed, fast asleep. 2023.
mixed media on paper. 30 × 20cm. £4,000
6 The sea is full of bottling seals, mating seals, floating seals.etc.
mixed media on paper. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
7 Porth Seal, tide rising. Turnstone, ringed plover and sandpiper. 2023. mixed media on museum board.
60 × 60cm. £8,500
8 Eastern Isles from St Martins, distant seal choirs on the breeze. 2023.
mixed media on museum board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
9 Scilly seas full of seals. 2023
mixed media on museum board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
23 On Lizard Point. Gulls, dolphins, kittiwakes, seals etc. mixed media on paper. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
24 Pale low water. Seal, gull, oystercatcher, cormorant, etc mixed media on wood panel. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
25 Winter solstice bottling seal. 2020. mixed media and collage on paper. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
26 No seals today on this flat, calm silver morning. 2023. mixed media on wood panel. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
27 One big seal, Roseland. 2023. mixed media on wood panel. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
28 Watching a seal. 2022. mixed media on canvas board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
29 Seal Island and seal watchers’ boats. 2023. mixed media on wood panel. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
30 Seal country. 60 seals, 600 foot below me. 2023. mixed media on paper. 56 × 61cm. £8,500
31 I can just see six seals out on the rocks. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
10–11
Bottling and logging just offshore. 2023.
12 Porth Seal, tide line of birds, high water. 2023.
mixed media on museum board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
13
One seal on Porth Seal, sun on Round Island. 2023.
mixed media on paper. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
14–15 Inside a wave. 2023.
mixed media on canvas. 122 × 170cm. £48,000
32 To the Seal Islands, summer’s evening. 2023. mixed media on wood panel. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
33 Seal island, seal watchers’ boats. 2023. mixed media on paper. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
34 Seal spotting in North Cornwall. 2023. mixed media on wood panel. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
35 The wind is trying to blow me off the cliff to join the seals etc. mixed media on museum board. 53 × 53cm. £7,500
15
Seal heads. 2023.
mixed med. & collage on museum board. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
16 Missley dusk, burbling waders and backwash, Porth Seal. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
17 Porth Seal, sun then showers. 2023.
mixed media on museum board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
18 Floating seals. 2022. mixed media on paper. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
19 Snoozing seals, down in the deep shade. 2022. mixed media on paper. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
21 Seal Zawn. Hissing, caterwauling, howling, snorting etc. mixed media on museum board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
22 Mild winters morning, a few seals hauled out on the beach. 2022. mixed media on museum board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
36 Roseland seal spotting. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
37 Howling seals and raucous fulmars. 2022. mixed media on wood panel. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
38 Big seal under the water. 2023. mixed media on wood panel. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
39 Six summer seals in the summer seas. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
40 The sun is in the cove at high water with the seals. 2023. mixed media on paper. 40 × 40cm. £6,500
42 Hot mid-summer. Two seals floating on the surface etc. mixed media on wood panel. 60 × 60cm. £8,500
43 A seal pops his head up briefly, Scilly. 2023. mixed media on mount board. 50 × 50cm. £7,500
Seal, An Reun Kernewek
44 Seals hang out in the shallows in front of us, gurgling and snorting
45 Seal Islands, summer gale. 2023.
media on museum board.
46 Small boat and big seal. 2023. mixed media on wood panel.
48 Three seals bottling below me. 2023. mixed media on wood panel. 60 × 60cm.
49 Seals Hole, Pentargon, falling sky, distant Lundy. 2023. mixed media on museum board.
50 left Tean from Porth Seal, rising tide, autumn sunshine. 2023.
50 right One seal on a Scilly evening. 2023.
media on museum board.
51 l The rain comes in on Porth Seal beach. 2023. mixed media on museum board.
51 r Seals and tame Scilly sparrows, evening. 2023.
52 l Seal Rock is next to Illiswilgig off Samson and Bryher. 2023.
52 r Caroline on Porth Seal. 2023
media on paper.
53 l Evening seals in front of Nornour. 2023.
media on museum board.
53 r From Droppy Nose Point, Bryher. 2012. mixed media on museum board.
54 l Norrard Rocks with Seal Rock. 2015.
media on museum board.
54 r The seal watches me and I watch the seal. 2022. mixed media on paper.
× 29cm.
55 l Me and the ravens look down on the seals. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 30 × 30cm. £5,000
55 r 20 seals are down there, away from us lot. 2022. mixed media on museum board. 30 × 30cm. £5,000
56 l I can’t see them but I can hear the seals howling below me. 2023.
mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22cm.
56 r Gannet, seal, gull, shag and pipit. 2022. mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
57 l At high water most seals leave the cove. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
57 r 20 seals below me. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
58 l Seal choir. 2022. mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
58 r Sunlight and seals, high water...2022. mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
59 l They lie there snorting and howling at each other. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
59 r Sunbathing seals. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
60 l Swimming, splashing, mewing. 2023. mixed media and collage on paper. 30 × 20cm. £4,000
60 r Hauled out, eyebrows and whiskers. 2023. mixed media on paper. 30 × 20cm. £4,000
61 l She surfaces just below me. 2023. mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
61 r↑ Pup 1. 2023. monoprint. plate size 22 × 20.5cm. £1,000
61 r↓ Pup, Constantine bay. 2023. edition of 30. drypoint. plate size 22 × 20.5cm. (unfr.) £450
62 We met on the beach. 2022. mixed media on canvas. 91 × 91cm. £24,000
63 To the Seal Islands. 2023. mixed media on canvas. 122 × 122cm. £35,000
64–65 Gang of seals. 2023. mixed media on canvas. 84 × 171cm. £35,000
66 I watch the seal and the seal watches me. 2023. mixed media on canvas. 170 × 170cm. £60,000
67 Seal. 2023.
construction, slate, lead, hessian etc. 13 × 18cm. £3,000
68 l Self portrait down the cove with the seal. 2023. construction, driftwood etc. 19 × 28cm. £4,000
68 r Watching the seal. 2023. construction, driftwood etc. 15 × 28cm. £4,000
69 l From the back of the beach, Porth Seal. Sea orache etc. mixed media on museum board. 22 × 22cm. £3,500
69 r From the back of the beach, Porth Seal. 2023. mixed media on paper. 21 × 21cm. £3,500
72 Glossy coat and fishy smells, hauled out. 2023. mixed media on mount board. 40 × 40cm. £6,500