This journey focused upon ChristChurch, Spitalfields and the surrounding streets.
The church was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor in the English Baroque manner and was built between 1715 to 1729. The church sits in an area of London that has a rich, sometimes dark history; and still retains an 'aura' today.
A Spitalfields Journey
Informed by journeys or site-specific locations, the work draws inspiration from Charles Baudelaire’s concept of the ‘flâneur’, as a detached observer of the modern metropolis.
‘He, the lover of life, may also be compared to a mirror as vast as this crowd: to a kaleidoscope endowed with consciousness, which with every one of its movements presents a pattern of life, in all its multiplicity, and the
flowing grace of all the elements that go to compose life.’
Charles Baudelaire (1861)
As well as recording a personal journey, this work provides a social documentary - recording the mix of architecture and cultures and the way they co-exist in an ever changing world.
Spitalfields has an ‘aura’ about it – echoes of the past and an almost electrical buzz of the present, resonating and bouncing around, from building to building, street to street.
‘I had already noticed in things a sort of conspiratorial air. Was it to me that it was addressed? I had no means of understanding… You could have sworn that things were thought which stopped halfway, which forgot themselves, which forgot what they had wanted to think and which stayed like that, swaying to and fro, with funny little meaning which went beyond them’
Jean Paul Sartre (1938)
There is a dark side to the area – this was where Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper committed their crimes. There is also a more benign side as an area that has harboured strangers: in turn the Huguenots, the Jews, and the Bengalis have all made the area their home. Geographically, and in human terms, Spitalfields has always been on the edge; I am drawn to document and respond to it.
David Rhys Jones
Fitzrovia & St Giles-in-the Fields
For this exhibition, two walks were undertaken near the gallery; one through Fitzrovia and another within the area surrounding St Giles-in-the Fields. The area of Fitzrovia is a place many people in London rarely get to know; much of the area is residential and with major roads surrounding it but not running through it, making it a sort of ‘island’ within the centre of London.
The area of St Giles-in-the Fields and Centre Point nearby, is very different in comparison; more well known and often visited or passed through, it is busy, noisy and chaotic. This area is currently undergoing much change and redevelopment. All these elements are explored through the workwhich stands partly as a record of the experience of being there and of the physical appearance of these areas at this time.
City of London artworks
This work was inspired by a journey around Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage in Dungeness and the surrounding area.
‘Paradise haunts gardens’, writes Jarman ‘and it haunts mine’.
Derek Jarman (1942-1994) was famous as a film-maker, artist, stage designer, and writer. He is also remembered for his shingle cottage-garden, created in the latter years of his life, in the shadow of the Dungeness power station. The house was built in tarred timber. Raised wooden text on the side of the cottage is the first stanza and the last five lines of the last stanza of John Donne's poem, ‘The Sun Rising’.
In my response to Jarman’s garden and the surrounding area I have attempted to make work with a ‘filmic’ quality that references Jarman’s work and provides a narrative of my own journey.
A commission from Central Saint Martins to record the two main College buildings prior to relocation from its Southampton Row and Charing Cross Road sites to a new site in King's Cross in 2011.
The resulting work took the form of a limited edition set of Artist's books, paper structures, photographs and ceramic works.
Please click on an image for more details and images
© David Rhys Jones
This work was a commission from the curators of the exhibition 'Culture Bound' at the Courtauld Institute.
The work formed part of the Eastwing Collection VII.
This work focused upon the London churches designed exclusively by Nicolas Hawksmoor (1661-1736).
The exhibition in 2011 marked the 350th anniversary of Hawksmoor's birth and 275th anniversary of his death, making it an appropriate time to celebrate his architectural legacy.
The venue was the Hawksmoor designed rectory at Christ Church, Spitalfields.
Please click on an image for more details and images
Public Art is an important strand in my practice, and this commission was a sculpture for Bishop's Square in Spitalfields - a new Norman Foster development.
Works inspired by the city of Oxford
Please click on an image for more details and images
I have been photographing Soho for around 5 years, and this work currently exists just as a photography portfolio. At some stage I plan to make 3d work using the photographs - just a few are illustrated here...
Please click on an image for more details and images
