Kurt Jackson's Rivers - (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From source to sea, artist Kurt Jackson's fascination with the rivers of the British Isles and beyond has endured throughout his life. This book explores, for the first time, Jackson's visual and written responses to the rivers that he has followed, from the continent of Africa to his home county of Cornwall.

The diversity of the waterways that Jackson has come to know through his travels is echoed in his images, which capture habitats rich in flora and fauna. We can also discern the changing face of our rivers - choked by pollution and straining to survive the abuses inflicted since industrialisation restricted the natural flow of the network of blue lines that trickle, meander and run through our lands. Celebrating those networks common to us all, this important publication reminds us of the splendours of our rivers - powerful and fragile in equal measure.

Review Quotes

'To open Kurt Jackson's Rivers is to wade into an artist's perceptual reality. Each page in this large format volume displays one of Kurt Jackson's mixed media paintings that creates a sense of suspended time the same way that wading into a stream slows the mind. Even a depiction of a waterfall or salmon jumping quiets the high-speed perpetual motion machine of the human intellect.' - Gregory Gordon, H-Net

'Kurt Jackson's enchanting book makes us fall in love with rivers all over again - here are rivers as they should be and rivers as they are; streams of life, music and vitality, dancing with many moods, movements and the magic of light on water.' - Patrick Barkham, author of The Swimmer

'Kurt Jackson's rivers don't have the tidy edges of our tamed waterways. They trespass in woods, spill over impertinent borders. In one sense water has been an essential element in all his paintings. It plumps cells, gives the spring to branches, animates the coast. It's life's liquidity.' - Richard Mabey, Writer and Broadcaster

'This is a great deal - a very great deal - more than simply a book of paintings of rivers. It is in fact a completely immersive love letter to the waterways (canals are included) that are the foundation of the British landscape.' - Art Book Review

About the Author

British artist Kurt Jackson's practice involves both plein air and studio work and embraces an extensive range of materials and techniques, including mixed media, large canvases, printmaking and sculpture. He has been artist-in-residence on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, at the Eden Project and at Glastonbury Festival since 1999, and is Honorary Fellow of both St Peter's College, Oxford University and Arts University Plymouth, while also holding a Honorary Doctorate from Exeter University for his services to the arts. George Monbiot is an environmental campaigner, journalist, writer and film-maker. His most recent book, Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet, was published in 2022.