Clive Hicks-Jenkins

Critic Nicholas Usherwood has described the painting of Clive Hicks-Jenkins (b.1951) as 'reflective, expressive painting of the highest order'. From a background as a choreographer and theatre director, Hicks-Jenkins has since the 1990s become increasingly well-known as a painter, producing exploratory sequences of works that embrace diverse subject-matter with a consistent and distinctive vision. His paintings are now held in all the principal public collections in Wales and his artists' books are in libraries worldwide; he is a Royal Cambrian Academician and an Honorary Fellow of Aberystwyth University. This book is the first to survey Clive Hicks-Jenkins' work as a whole, and is published in celebration of the artist's 60th birthday. Its wide-ranging texts, written by poets, novelists and art historians based in Britain and the USA, address the themes inherent in Hicks-Jenkins' different bodies of work: the use of locations in his paintings; his interest in creating theatrical ensembles from familiar objects; the sequence of huge drawings inspired by the Welsh folk tradition of the Mari Lwyd; the important sequence of works made in response to the fragments of a Tuscan altarpiece at Christ Church Picture Gallery; paintings exploring stories of the miraculous; the influence of theatre in the artist's use of puppets as preparatory maquettes; the important role of drawing; the production of artist's books; and Hicks-Jenkins' dialogues with contemporary poets. The book will be welcomed by the artist's growing following of supporters and collectors and by all those with an interest in contemporary narrative painting.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction; 'Places remember events'; What is a Still Life?; The Motions of Desire; Leaps of Faith − of Dancing and Drawing; The Mari Lwyd; The Temptations of Solitude; Fire in the Labyrinth; The Artist's Books; Hicks-Jenkins and Contemporary Poets; Autobiographical Note; Exhibitions and Collections; Bibliography; Index.

About the Author :
Simon Callow is an acclaimed actor, director and writer, whose books include Being an Actor, Love is Where it Falls, My Life in Pieces and highly-regarded biographies of Charles Laughton and Orson Welles. Damian Walford Davies is Reader in English at the Department of English & Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University and author of three collections of poetry. Andrew Green is Librarian of the National Library of Wales and writes and lectures widely on the transmission of culture and information. Rex Harley is a writer whose published work includes fiction, poetry and articles on the visual arts and music. Kathe Koja is a novelist based in Michigan whose published books include The Cipher, Skin and Headlong. Anita Mills was formerly Associate Professor and Chair of the Art Department at St Cloud State University, Minnesota, where she taught drawing, design and printmaking. Montserrat Prat is a television producer whose recent work has included a documentary on religious art across Europe and a music film of Haydn's Seven Last Words. Jacqueline Thalmann is Curator of the Picture Gallery at Christ Church, Oxford. Marly Youmans is a published poet, novelist and short-story writer described as 'the best-kept secret among contemporary American writers'.