AN EXHIBITION of new work by noted artist Kurt Jackson is now open at Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum.
Clay Country brings together paintings and ceramics centred around Cornwall’s industrial clay mines, which supplied raw materials to Royal Worcester Porcelain.
China clay has been mined in Cornwall for at least 250 years and is an ingredient in our everyday lives; it appears in paper, light bulbs, toothpaste and plastics.
The porcelain works at Royal Worcester depended on clay from Cornish mines, so creating an industrial link between Worcester and Cornwall which survived for centuries. Unglazed ceramic pieces found in excavations at Royal Worcester Porcelain feature in this exhibition, alongside Jackson’s paintings.
“These paintings show the other side to Cornwall, the less glamorous, industrial side,” Kurt said.
“From the ‘washing’ of the clay from the face with high pressure monitors, to the pumping, the blasting of the rock and breaking and transportation, all became subject matter to the apparent tiny figures and machines working in this vast open air pit.”
A dedicated environmentalist, he lives and works in the most-westerly town in Britain, St Just-in-Penwith, which is also home to the Jackson Foundation Gallery.
