If you’re in Holmfirth or Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, with an hour or two to spare, why not pop into Ashley Jackson’s Art Gallery.
When you mention the name Ashley Jackson what does it bring to mind?
For me it conjures up powerful dynamic skies and landscape so real that you can stand in front of his watercolour paintings and feel the cold wet earth beneath your feet. In a decade of conceptual art he is one of only a handful of artists who have carved their profession from the skill of figurative art, staying close to his beloved Yorkshire Moors. His gallery is based in the small market town of Holmfirth, a place that he moved his then young family to in 1972 long before Allan Bell chose Holmfirth and its local folk to be the back drop for “Last of the Summer Wine.” Holmfirth has changed much since then, the programme has ended but the stunning landscape remains to entice anyone who chooses to travel less than a mile from the town centre. Such is Ashley’s passion to encourage visitors to view the surrounding moors that in April 2010 Ashley worked in collaboration with Kirklees to provide a walk with an artistic twist, “A walk with Ashley”. Available to download from here it takes you through three painting locations so that you can follow in the footsteps of the artist and see what inspiration he gained from the surrounding area.
Speaking to Ashley and understanding the passion he has for his beloved Yorkshire it is difficult to believe he was not born in Yorkshire, but Penang, Malaya (as it then was – it’s now Malaysia) in 1940 to European parents. The Second World War and the death of his father at the hands of the Japanese precipitated the start of a long and tortuous journey (with stops in Singapore, India and Scotland) to Yorkshire. His mother remarried a Yorkshire man who brought them to settle in what was then the West Riding – first in Huddersfield and then Barnsley. The family relationship was not a good one and Ashley found solace in drawing in his bedroom or visiting the moors surrounding Holmfirth by bus with his friends, and it was during these times that he was truly free. His stepfather decided that he should go by his second name Norman whilst living in Barnsley to prevent bullying for what was conceived as a rather sissy name in the 1950’s. His mother had gone to see “Gone with the Wind” whilst pregnant and had fallen in love with Ashley Wilkes (played by the actor Leslie Howard). Ashley jokes to this day of whether he might have been called Rhett had she fallen for Clark Gable’s character.
Young Ashley was not an academic child – but that was at least partly through lack of opportunity, as he had little chance to settle at school during his early years – but he did have a talent for art and this was recognised and supported firstly by his teachers and his headmaster and then by his art tutor at College. This talent was also recognised and nurtured by a Miss Hayden, the owner of his local art shop where he would buy his materials and bring her his paintings to appraise. Such was her support and faith that when Ashley moved his first gallery from Dodworth to Barnsley centre in 1968 it was so he could be next door to her art shop. When Miss Hayden retired, Ashley bought the shop and maintained it until it closed in March of this year. Ashley moved the gallery side to its now established home in Holmfirth in 1986.
A further friend whom Ashley would acknowledge as being an influential factor in his connection with the Yorkshire Moors was his old boss Ron Darwent, with whom he trained and worked under as a glass guilder and signwriter from leaving college to opening his first gallery. A father-figure to Ashley through his formative adolescent years, it was Ron who he’d turn to for advice and who he’d go for hikes with in the isolated moorland around Yorkshire and the Dales. Sadly, Ron passed away this year leaving an irreplaceable void.
Ashley has gone on to achieve great things over the years, with three “One man” exhibitions at the Mall Galleries, London; exhibitions at the Municipal Gallery in Valencia in Spain; an appearance as guest exhibitor by invitation at an exhibition featuring Picasso, Dali and Miró in Lanzarote; and countless television series and books (and he’ll also be taking part in a joint exhibition with another real Yorkshire artist, Graham Ibbeson, in Cusworth Hall, Doncaster later this year – see our recent blog). Ashley’s paintings are now exhibited all over the world and are also found in the collections of those who wish to enjoy their pension plan every day on their wall. But Ashley is unfazed by his success and remains grounded. He likes making art accessible to all and welcomes the opportunity to meet some of the many people visiting the gallery in Holmfirth. Some of them are surprised to see the artist there in person, but for him, that’s the whole point of painting: it’s for everyman to appreciate. As he jokes, “I am fortunate that I do not belong to a school of artists that have to have ‘this way up’ written on the back of my work”.
His passion for Yorkshire is only matched by the firmness of his belief that art requires real skills. You’ll not find trickery or gimmicks in his paintings – it’s all about craftsmanship. So, for example, the white you see as highlights in his pictures is the white of the paper. Like Turner, his main inspiration, Ashley uses washes to create depth to his paintings, often using up to 30 washes of transparent colour to achieve the desired effect. To get this right requires skill and experience, because, as any novice water-colourist will tell you, just adding any old colours together leads to muddy brown.
Ashley Jackson’s paintings are atmospheric, dynamic and, yes, often dark, but for those that know the Yorkshire moors this is often the reality of Yorkshire – particularly in winter. Yes, we get our share of sunny days but to depict only landscapes bathed in sunlight would not show Yorkshire in its truest colours – in fact some would say the best moorland views occur on overcast or rainy days when the clouds move across the sky, casting their shadows like fingers across the darkened heather, with glimmers of light peeking through the clouds as if to remind us of God’s presence. It’s this sort of day that the artist wants to capture, so this is when you’re most likely to find Ashley painting on the moors. So if I’m out and about on a rainy day, I’ll often look up at the heavens and think to myself “This is an Ashley Jackson sky”.
For further information about Ashley Jackson please visit his website where you’ll find biographical information, images, and contact information and from where you can buy books by Ashley and some of his prints.