Jason Hicklin
Jason Hicklin was born in 1966 and graduated from St. Martins in 1988 and the Central School of Art in 1993. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of Painters and Printmakers in 1993. Jason is currently a lecturer of Printmaking at City and Guilds Art School in London and has a studio in Montgomeryshire.
Since graduating he has had numerous solo and joint exhibitions including exhibiting at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2000, 1999, 1998, 1995 and 1994. He has also exhibited in the London Contemporary Art Fair in 2000 and 1999, the National Print Exhibition, Leeds City Art Gallery and the Chelsea Art Fair. He has also taken part in touring exhibitions in France and Barcelona.
In 1996 and 1997 he was a prizewinner of the Hunting Art Prize at the Royal College of Art in London and the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. He also won the Julian Trevelyan RE Memorial Prize at the National Printmaking Exhibition in 1997.
His paintings and etchings capture the feel of the weather and its effect on the landscape. He relishes rough weather and his walks along the coastline of the British Isles result in swirly inky images which strikingly record the elemental collisions between earth, sea and weather. He conveys the bleak essence of driving rain, when the mist closes down and masters the polarities of bright skies and shadowed rocks. Hills become soft, rain soaked masses which threaten to dissolve under the weight of swirling mists and cloud. Rivers are transformed into magical moonlit pathways which run between the dark huddled outlines of urban sprawl. Hicklin’s watercolours, acrylics and oils share these qualities, often with turbulent blazes of colour combining into soft explosions of warmth and vitality. His work is charged with an atmosphere born of an intimate knowledge and a direct physical experience of their changing moods.
Aptly titled ‘North by Northwest’ the exhibition features around 30 paintings, etchings and drawings based on and inspired by the rugged Northern landscape including Yorkshire, Northumbria, The Lake District and Scotland.
Says Leah Hester-Brown regarding Jason’s work: “We are extremely delighted to be holding this exhibition. Jason is highly regarded as an important contemporary artist and he has a large following of collectors, both in this country and abroad. He has an incredible skill of being able to convey the raw essence of the landscape so that the elements appear to be rising off the surface of the painting. His work abounds with energy and atmosphere.”