5th - 25th October

 

Mike Jones………On Reflection

 

David Michael Jones was born in Penrhiwtyn Hospital, Neath on October 12th 1941.

An only child, he grew up in the small Welsh village of Godrergraig about twelve miles from the vibrant industrial port of Swansea and lived the first twelve years of his childhood with his collier father and home loving mother in the basement of his grandmother’s house.

The language of the home was Welsh and Mike related stories of a very happy and idyllic boyhood sharing quiet times with his grandmother who enjoyed drawing and painting, listening to his uncle who played the violin, and more boisterous play with friends fishing, playing rugby and walking up to local farms to help at busy times of the year.

 

When he was nine years old, an accident playing a lively game of bows and arrows resulted in Mike receiving a devastating blow and the loss of his right eye.

During his time in hospital and long convalescence he was encouraged by a surgeon to draw with pencil as part of his rehabilitation and throughout his life Mike said his first love was drawing.

While at Pontardawe Technical School Mike continued to enjoy drawing both for education and pleasure. At this time his father became landlord of a public house named “The Bird in Hand” in Godrergraig and the business and regular patrons provided Mike with a wealth of first hand figurative models, people he admired and loved.

 

On the advice of his headmaster and his father Mike did not go to Art College and instead followed a career in local government but extended his drawing and painting as a passionate past time.

 

In 1962, at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in Llanelli, Mike saw the work of Josef Herman which had been awarded the Gold Medal for Fine Art and he was overwhelmed by the subject of the coal miners portrayed he said in a way Mike had never perceived.

Twenty years later Mike and Josef met and became good friends.

 

During the 1980’s Mike began exhibiting in The Attic Gallery Swansea and The Albany Gallery Cardiff and encouraged by artists Will Roberts and John Uzzell Edwards his style of painting evolved into a very personal and freer interpretation of his subject matter which reflected his feelings as simple but bold powerful images, rooted in the social life of characters past and present.

Mike had always admired the work of imigrent artists like Josef Herman and Heinz Koppel and was also influenced by the emotional and poetic art of Russian artist Marc Chagall and the enduring monumental style of figures of Bernard Meninsky .

 

Mike worked mostly in his attic studio but sketched on any material to hand outside and any subject matter that took his interest.

He was drawn to the body language and structure of working figures, farmers, colliers, steelworkers and fishermen.

He always said pretty pictures had no interest for him but he had a natural ability to portray the tenderness and character of women with simple lines, even if they were women carrying heavy buckets of coal, putting washing on the clothesline or scrubbing a step.

Being an avid reader he produced a series of more abstract black and white pictures after reading a book of short stories by Dylan Thomas.

 

His working materials depended on the subject matter and size of the work and he used rotary pens, pen and ink, pencil, charcoal, graphite, ink wash, crayon, oil pastel and oil paint.

 

Mike’s work has been exhibited widely throughout Wales, in London and Stow on the Wold, The Royal Academy Summer Show 2015 and is held in private collections across the world.

Examples of his work are held in The National Library of Wales.

 

“His figures in black and white stay on in my mind”,

Josef Herman, O.B.E., R.A. [1998]

 

“He has an honesty and a love for the characters he paints”,

Sir Kyffin Williams, K.B.A., R.A. [2010]

 

“His dedication to a record of time passing, of men passing, will live on in the world as an integral part of our collective memory”,

Mick Rooney, R.A. [2022]