- Venue
- Colwyn Bay Library Gallery
- Location
- Wales
Jan Gardner
Mythical Marks and Colour Magic
It’s a cold wet November day and Colwyn Bay like so many small seaside towns has seen better days. The Library lies a short distance up a side street off the main road. Directly opposite is a boarded up church. It’s not an auspicious start but open the library doors and you step straight into Jan Gardner’s exotic and joyous world of colour. This foyer gallery space is not much larger than the hall of a grand country house and the Victorian architecture with it’s curving staircase and dramatic tiled floor could easily overshadow a lesser artist but Jan’s mixed-media work shimmers and sparkles like a tropical garden in the sunshine. In Jan’s own words ‘colour lifts the spirit and gives us hope’ However this exhibition explores and investigates issues far deeper than the colour and beauty of the mixed media surface. It is part of a body of work that documents the voyage of discovery that Jan embarked upon in an extensive research project into her personal colour palette. Due to the restrictions of the exhibition space the works here have had to be a selected glimpse of Jan’s work from ‘My Colour Story’ which took her around the world through India, Italy and North and South America learning not only the historical origins of her beloved pigments but also of the toil and suffering that was often involved in their production. Long Ago and Far Away’ is perhaps the best starting point for the Colwyn Bay exhibition for Jan describes it as the work that marks the beginning of her journey. The background is a vibrant combination of loose colour worked into and upon. Significantly there sits centrally a ‘magic carpet waiting to whisk us off on a dreamlike voyage of discovery for Jan’s work is always a combination of imagination with a dash of reality. Look carefully at each of the works. The initial impact is of purity and vibrancy of colour but closer investigation reveals a complex language of hidden layers and symbols embedded within. ‘Homage to Indian Yellow’ tells the story in symbolic imagery of the origin of that pigment whilst at the same time glowing with the colour itself. The cow fed only on mango leaves in order to produce bright yellow urine from which the pigment could be produced stares sadly out at us from his glorious golden ‘prison’. The ‘magic carpet’ sits waiting for us to finish our visit and carry us off to the next destination. In ‘Omar Khayyam and Paradise Garden’ Jan embeds a stitched fabric ‘magic carpet’ representational of the colourful carpets on which the Persians would sit in the winter to await the coming of Spring. We travel to Afghanistan to walk among the producers of Rose Madder, fly off to South America where Cochineal was produced from ground up beetles, visit the biblical lands where Tyrian Purple was extracted from molluscs and explore the issues raised by the thousands of Indians who died in the production of sufficient Indigo pigment to satisfy voracious Western demand. Always hidden within each picture lie clues as to the myriad of social and economic issues raised by the historical production of these pigments and Jan’s exhibition leads us on a journey that raises important ethical questions about the origins of many colours whilst at the same time we cannot help but respond to their beauty. Of course many pigments are today either produced synthetically or the production is carefully regulated but one can only wonder at what may be still happening in undeveloped parts of the world where life remains a cheap commodity. Coming almost back to our starting point we reach a work in which the colours whilst rich are much softer and reminiscent of the landscape and gentler climate of Wales. This work is executed entirely in inks produced from pigments that the Welsh felt artist Helen Melvin has extracted from plants she grows in her own garden. Significantly the picture portrays Helen’s garden. So like in all great ‘magic journeys’ we have arrived back safely at our starting point enriched by the knowledge gained and sights seen. It’s an exhibition that demands you come back again and again and each time there is something new to discover.
Susie Liddle
