David Jones

Chris Miller - art critic, fine art translator and collector of David Jones writes ---

'Line drawing is the high-wire act of the graphic art: it has to evoke with nothing more than outline, dispensing with the luxury of modelling through shadow (shading and hatching). Moreover, since the marks are so prominent, they have to afford pleasure in themselves. There is much common ground with calligraphy. The paradigm for the 20th century was Matisse’s outline nudes, magically evoking solidity through the undulation of pen or brush.
David Jones has made a speciality of line, to which he adds the further challenge of Zen drawing. Most drawing depends on a moment of memory, as the artist’s eye moves from subject to paper. David places the pen on the paper and then, without looking away from his model, inscribes his mark. Each drawing is made of the minimum number of marks. The procedure involves a kind of essentialising brevity, a bare economy of elegance. The result has something in common with Paleolithic art, such as the Lascaux paintings. A process of abstraction is involved – the drawings seem at once particular and archetypical, as if the reduction of naturalistic detail had a power of evocation beyond the particular. And, the shape...

Member of the Oxford Art Society O.A.S.
Taught Zen drawing by the American artist Elda Abramson, now resident in the UK.

Exhibited in London,Oxford and Suffolk. Original line drawings sold worldwide.

Thanks to the many people who support me.