news archive
Jonathan Parsons,‘Garden Sculpture’
(detail), 2011
Jonathan Parsons,‘Memento’, 1996
Uncharted Planet: Painting’s Cartographic Tendencies
by Jonathan Parsons
in issue 9 of Turps Banana magazine out now
a new landscape installation now on view at Harnham Water Meadows, Salisbury
until 24 September 2011
ACE Awards
Jonathan Parsons’ Cruciform Vision at Guildford Cathedral was shortlisted for the ACE Award for Art in a Religious Context 2011
Read more about the prizewinners here
Exhibition:
Tim Machin | Sara Mackillop | Jonathan Parsons |
4 May – 8 July 2012
Level 4 Gallery
Hartley Library
University of Southampton
Your Paintings
Jonathan Parsons’ work is now featured on Your Paintings, which aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings from thousands of museums and other public institutions around the country.
Formulation Picture (Space Lattice)
oil on linen, 2000
Collective Spirit
Photograph courtesy of Lone Twin
Exhibition:
Jonathan Parsons’ architectural installation, Let Me Count the Ways, features in the archive of this exhibition:
21 June - 9 September 2012
Exhibition:
Inspiring Art, Design and Cartography
Including work by: Claire Brewster | Jonathan Parsons
Susan Stockwell | Stephen Walter | Jeremy Wood
18 May - 28 October 2012
Zoned Out, 2004
dissected maps in acrylic case
Solo Exhibition:
Zed’s Dead
5 October - 3 November 2012
289 Cambridge Heath Rd
London E2 9HA
Open:
Wednesday - Saturday
12:00 - 17:00
or by appointment
GALLERY TALK
Jonathan Parsons in conversation with curator Catherine Loewe
Saturday 27 October
7.00 - 8.00 pm
0224
All is Vanity (Paintcatching Scaffold)
2012-13
oil, enamel and varnish on wood
0255
Study for 9-name Variation, 2014, enamel on birch ply
Solo Exhibition:
New Paintings
12 November - 20 December 2014
New Art Projects, 17 Riding House Street, London W1W 7DS
Open: Wednesday - Friday 11:00 - 18:00, Saturday 12:00 - 17:00
Jonathan Parsons is the artistic lead for the UK Parliament’s 2015 Flag Project, commemorating 750 years since De Montfort parliament. A selection of 80 ceremonial sewn flags were displayed in Parliament Square from 18 - 22 May 2015. The flags were shown again in the presence of the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke of Cambridge at a major international event commemorating the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta at Runnymede Meadows in Surrey on 15 June 2015. The digital project is open to every UK primary school until 31 December 2015. Explore the digital flags exhibition here.
Parliament 2015 Flag Project, installation view in Parliament Square, 18 - 22 May 2015
Images © UK Parliament / Jessica Taylor
---
curated by Neil Zakiewicz
Lothar Götz | Jonathan Parsons
DJ Simpson | Neil Zakiewicz
4 - 25 June 2016
The artists in Mechanical Abstract use mechanical means to control the chaotic and irregular movement of colour. Shielding or masking off areas restrains the flow emanating from a brush or can; the line of a pencil or crayon is guided by a straight edge. The temporal aspect of the act of creation is central to these processes and becomes a primary subject matter. Specific media and methods are celebrated, but their applications are carried out in a restrained, measured, and determined way.
---
This is the first major exhibition in the UK to explore the centrality of the circle in art. The exhibition features more than 130 works – from 3000BC to the present day – and considers the ways in which artists have gravitated to this universal and recurring form, exploring its significance and symbolism in art and culture; astronomy and geometry; spirituality and everyday life. Including works by: Leonardo da Vinci, Paul Nash, Barbara Hepworth, Carl Andre, William Blake, Hannah Collins, Christian Marclay, Runa Islam, JMW Turner, Theaster Gates, Rebecca Horn, David Hammons, Sonia Delauney, Richard Long, Nancy Holt, David Batchelor, Gabriel Orozco and Bridget Riley.
Praise for Seeing Round Corners:
‘This is the most stimulating and compelling exhibition...the
circle is surely the most potent of all natural symbols...the
ideal theme for a show as well curated as this.’
Laura Cumming, The Observer
‘This intriguing exhibition convinces from the outset...as I
emerged from the gallery I had different sense of the world’
Mark Hudson, The Telegraph
‘It’s incredibly stimulating...something which you get very
absorbed in and it relates to the mystery of the universe...
it’s quite cosmic’
Richard Cork, Front Row, Radio 4 (at 11:14)
‘Wonderful and very cleverly arranged...it does make you look slightly
differently at the world outside...a really stimulating well-chosen show’
Saturday Review, Radio 4 (at 27:33)
---
Seeing Round Corners
21 May – 25 September 2016
Turner Contemporary
conceived and co-curated
by Jonathan Parsons and David Ward
watch the introductory video here
click for the exhibition brochure
Exhibition:
Imperfect Reverse
curated by Laurence Noga and Saturation Point Projects
18 October - 18 November 2016
Camberwell Space Projects, London
24 November 2016 - 21 January 2017
Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge
Bringing together the work of artists from the 1960s and 70s Systems Group and younger artists working today, this exhibition surveys a wide range of approaches to the notion of an outside system of structural logic, generative grammar or a set of rules driving the making of a series of works.
Artists include: Dominic Beattie, Andrew Bick, Katrina Blannin, Jane Bustin, Richard Caldicott, Simon Callery, Colin Cina, Nathan Cohen, Chris Daniels Natalie Dower, Tim Ellis, Julia Farrer, Sue Kennington, Sharon Hall, Andrew Harrison, Hanz Hancock, Michael Kidner, Sylvia Lerin, Patrick Morrissey, Marta Marce, Ian Monroe, Laurence Noga, David Oates, Andrew Parkinson, Jonathan Parsons, Charley Peters, Carol Robertson, Wendy Smith, Daniel Sturgis, Trevor Sutton, Kate Terry, Estelle Thompson, Finbar Ward
Symposium: 3 November, 6pm - 8.30pm
Camberwell College of Arts, Wilson Road Lecture Theatre
See more work at:
0257
Break of Day, 2014, enamel on birch ply, 90 x 136 x 2.5 cm
Exhibition:
Imperfect Reverse
curated by Laurence Noga
24 November 2016 - 21 January 2017
Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge
Bringing together the work of artists from the 1960s and 70s Systems Group and younger artists working today, this exhibition surveys a wide range of approaches to the notion of an outside system of structural logic, generative grammar or a set of rules driving the making of a series of works.
Artists include: Dominic Beattie, Andrew Bick, Katrina Blannin, Jane Bustin, Richard Caldicott, Simon Callery, Colin Cina, Nathan Cohen, Chris Daniels Natalie Dower, Tim Ellis, Julia Farrer, Sue Kennington, Sharon Hall, Andrew Harrison, Hanz Hancock, Michael Kidner, Sylvia Lerin, Patrick Morrissey, Marta Marce, Ian Monroe, Laurence Noga, David Oates, Andrew Parkinson, Jonathan Parsons, Charley Peters, Carol Robertson, Wendy Smith, Daniel Sturgis, Trevor Sutton, Kate Terry, Estelle Thompson, Finbar Ward
Exhibition Catalogue: imperfect reverse catalogue 2016.pdf
---
The Order of Things
Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum
28 January - 5 March 2017
Exhibition conceived and co-curated by:
Andrew Bick, Jonathan Parsons and Katie Pratt
Seminar and closing event: 3-8pm, 2 March 2015
Titled after the English translation of Michel Foucault’s 1966 book Les Mots et les Choses, this exhibition reflects on the inherent humanity in how artists conceptualise and structure their creativity. Each exhibited artist considers how we order, systematize and encounter the world. Their various practices respond to the international development of non-representational art and its social role; the constant, essential exchanges negotiated between ‘words’ and ‘things’. Thirteen international contemporary artists are included, all of whom attempt to express lived experience in rapidly changing circumstances. Although their approaches vary considerably in technique, medium and aesthetic, they all examine our codes, systems and relationships.
Organised in partnership with Practice As Research at The University of Gloucestershire
---
---
Jonathan Parsons’ work can now be found on Art UK, the online home for art from every public collection in the UK.
---
Show Us Your Process
curated by Paul Carey-Kent
Bazalgette Room
1 Greek Street
Soho Square
London
W1D 4NQ
Open by appointment:
5 January - 5 June 2017
Alexis Harding, Daniel Lergon,
DJ Simpson, Jonathan Parsons,
Michael Stubbs, Neil Zakiewicz,
Shane Bradford, Tom Hackney,
Tony Charles
Show Us Your Process features nine painters whose paintings employ unusual means of making to explore material processes with the potential for broader metaphorical meaning.
The exhibited artists foreground a visible process to make abstract paintings, as if seeking not pure abstraction, but a painting which represents its own making. They set the matter running, but chance intervenes, and indeed is welcomed. The curator’s selection is of well-established European artists, and you could add Simon Hantaï, Imi Knoebel and Bernard Frize as prominent practitioners. Young American painters have recently gained considerable market favour through work of this sort. Some of them are indeed interesting, but should there be more attention paid to Europeans who were using comparable processes well before them?
ABSTRACT REMIX
Adrian Esparza | Joachim Grommek | Markus Linnenbrink | Jonathan Parsons
Jan van der Ploeg | Markus Weggenmann | Beat Zoderer
7 Jul 2017 – 26 Aug 2017
Thomas Taubert and Fred Mann are delighted to present a group show exploring the contemporary nature of abstraction. The two galleries have observed each other’s programs over the years and now seek to place works by their artists alongside each other.
The impetus for the exhibition is a comparison between two artists with a very different practice. Jonathan Parsons and Markus Linnenbrink. Parsons at his last show at New Art Projects explored color by expanding the palette of color theory and creating a series of works that questioned it. Linnenbrink often uses a photographic base to his works and then imposes color on top or creates a flawless surface, which he then drills into to reveal layers of contrasting color poured beneath.
They are joined by an international group of artists who explore both color and abstraction in a multitude of different ways: Adrian Esparza pulls colored threads between nails driven into perfect white frames to create geometric webs of color that play off each other. Joachim Grommek creates a flawless surface of enamel that resembles a painter’s process, areas appear ‘masked off’ and edges are pristine. Jan van der Ploeg uses acrylic to make formal abstractions where a repeated shape contrasts color across flat rendered canvasses. Markus Weggenmann creates a less formal surface; stepping away from a human gesture the paintings seem poured onto the surface in enamel or distemper, creating luscious pools of color. Beat Zoderer moves beyond a flat canvas by shaping and constructing aluminum coated with enamel into shapes that extend the boundaries of painting.
Together these artists constitute an in depth survey of contemporary abstraction that is being made in a multitude of different ways employing differing mediums and methods. Installed at New Art Projects the works play off each other in new and inventive ways, creating fresh dialogs about surface the human mark and color.
Jonathan Parsons
Paris, Rome, Berlin, Madrid
2015
enamel on birch ply structure
126 x 174 x 2.5 cm
---
Collateral Drawing 5
Rose Wylie | Jonathan Wright | Jonathan Parsons | Tim Noble | Nicole Mollett | Andrew Kötting and Eden Kötting | Gary Hume | Georgie Hopton | Matthew Herbert | Darrell Hawkins | Edgeworth | Bella Easton | Billy Childish | Scarlett Carlos Clarke | Jemima Brown
2 September – 5 November 2017
Collateral Drawing is a curatorial project by BEASTON projects, which explores the relationship between finished artworks and the various by-products associated with their production by exhibiting them alongside one another.
Jonathan Parsons
Bluestar (TERS inverted), 2017, oil on linen, 61 x 81 cm
collateral:
oil on masking tape, tracing on polyester drafting film, paint test on linen and analytical drawing on card showing the order of strokes in the original source
---
News:
Sea Music in Residence
21 October 2017 – 7 January 2018
Sea Music in Residence celebrates the recent conservation of Anthony Caro's Sea Music sculpture and is the culmination of three artists' residencies. This exhibition showcases the work of Jonathan Parsons, Amy Bourbon and Becci Louise Fearnley who were each invited to respond to Sea Music, its location and the conservation project. Click here to view images of the exhibition.
Jonathan Parsons, title page of 'sea music blue tide' (2017), limited edition artist's book
---
This solo exhibition presents a group of new works by Jonathan Parsons produced in situ during a research residency at the gallery. The artist has created test pieces derived from data relating to his current PhD studies at the University of Gloucestershire. On show are a suite of new modular and serial works that explore various methods of production and display, including object-based installations and wall drawings of basic scribble forms, diagrams and combines. The large-scale works embody data from Rhoda Kellogg’s groundbreaking and under valued 1969 study Analyzing Children’s Art. Click here to view images of the exhibition.
There will be a viewing and discussion event, with the artist in conversation with Don Parker and Angus Pryor, on Thursday 30th November, 5.00-6.30pm.
Angus Pryor is Head of School of Art & Design at the University of Gloucestershire. Don Parker is Academic Course Leader of BA Graphic Design and Visual Communication, and Post-Graduate Research lead at the University of Gloucestershire
Installation view showing ‘Diagrams D1-D6’ and ‘Thirty-six Possible Combines (Rhoda Kellogg)’
---
Jonathan Parsons is featured in Surrey Unearthed, a programme of ten linked projects exploring the natural materials of the Surrey landscape.
Fossil Ocean Floor is a large-scale text installation in farmland adjacent to the Great Western Railway near Dorking, Surrey. The work is on view from 7 June - 30 September and can be seen from the carriage road at Ranmore Common, the footpath across Milton Court Farm and from the Great Western Railway on the route from Reading to Gatwick that passes through Dorking West. A map of the location can be found here. The work is a response to the chalk hills surrounding its location. Chalk is composed of microscopic disc-shaped coccoliths; the fossilized remains of plankton from an ancient seabed. These are represented by the floating dots of the text. ‘Lamina’ is the word for a thin layer of sedimentary rock.
You can watch an interview with the artist here, where he explains the thoughts and processes behind the work.
Fossil Ocean Floor (2018) painted wood, 7m x 2m x 65m Photography by Jonathan Miller
---