KURT JACKSON: The Fowey

Kurt Jackson has spent well over forty years working on, next to and along many different watercourses; painting and drawing, following and observing these dynamic and enigmatic waterways.

For his newest exhibition, Jackson focuses on one of Cornwall’s most iconic rivers, the River Fowey; tracing her route from the source high up on Bodmin Moor through farmland and wooded valleys across the county to where she meets the sea in the sheltered deep water estuary by Fowey town.

Over the last few years Jackson immersed himself in the elements on a beautiful, diverse and richly rewarding journey to create this new series of paintings for this collection, simply titled The Fowey.

Jackson says “I am not alone in thinking and dreaming about rivers, let alone working with them. Rivers are places we find emotive, they carry our memories, feelings and histories.”

To quote the environmental campaigner and journalist George Monbiot, “Through Kurt Jackson’s stunning and gorgeous paintings, we derive a sense of what rivers once were and can be again. We can feel the flow and power of these magnificent living systems, their latent force and demand for freedom, the hint of what they want to be.”

Kurt Jackson goes further, stressing that “rivers serve as borders, transport routes, food, water and energy sources. But they are more than that – they have a life of their own and support more life and lives than we could ever imagine. Maybe more importantly they are on the front line of the environmental and climate crisis.”

For The Fowey, the Jackson Foundation Gallery has partnered with Friends of the Earth, a pioneering charity that works the protect people and planet. For the duration of The Fowey exhibition, the gallery will host Transforming Tomorrow, a photographic exhibition which tells the story of Friends of the Earths most iconic change-making campaigns.

Kurt Jackson’s The Fowey and Friends of the Earth’s Transforming Tomorrow run until February at the multi-award winning Jackson Foundation Gallery, St Just.