The Colour Of Water By Amanda Jones
With the waters of the Mediterranean part of her toolkit, Amanda Jones’ pilgrimage to the Aegean Sea led to The Colour of Water, a collection shaped by landscape, memory and the sea.
Words HANDE RENSHAW Photos KRISTIAN JONES
‘There was a lot of collaboration with the landscape. Not just the sea, but the wind, rain, tiny pebbles, crushed stone and other seaside particles all touched parts of these artworks and left their mark,’ says Amanda Jones.
The Colour of Water by Amanda Jones is an art book of analog photography and poetry, capturing the journey of creating the collection.
‘The idea was to do a total treatment of the canvas in salt water before bringing it onto shore to apply colour.’
“The prose in this collection gently searches for things seeming one way, but upon closer look tells another story. It holds the natural world as mirror to our inner world. A curiosity into the way we perceive our story. ”
‘Being on a remote island brought a lot of solitude, which unearths those deeper reflections simmering behind daily to-dos.’
‘It was impossible to really have control of what I was painting, which was exactly what I wanted.’
‘As the pigment and acrylic paint touch the deeply soaked canvas, they move in really beautiful shapes, especially with the rocks beneath creating little valleys for the colour to run through.’
‘It was really important to me not to let a drop of any medium in the environment. Absolutely everything went into the canvas, I was vigilant.’
Created across the islands of Greece during a month-long artist residency, The Colour of Water is Amanda Jones’ sixth collection, shaped by her time between the volcanic landscape of Agrilia and the waters of the Aegean Sea.
Amanda spent the first four days of the residency in Athens, writing beneath the Acropolis and watching the colours of the city shift from dawn to dusk. From there, she travelled to Agrilia, an abandoned village of cave homes carved into volcanic ash, where empty rooms became temporary studios and the surrounding landscape began to make its way into the work.
‘There was a lot of collaboration with the landscape. Not just the sea, but the wind, rain, tiny pebbles, crushed stone and other seaside particles all touched parts of these artworks and left their mark. It was impossible to really have control of what I was painting, which was exactly what I wanted,’ she shares.
The exchange with place continued as Amanda moved through the islands, with volcanic dust, salt water and the movement of the sea all becoming part of the finished works. At a hidden emerald cove, an old boathouse became her studio and the shoreline became central to the making process.
‘The idea was to do a total treatment of the canvas in salt water before bringing it onto shore to apply colour. As the pigment and acrylic paint touch the deeply soaked canvas, they move in really beautiful shapes, especially with the rocks beneath creating little valleys for the colour to run through.’
The conditions of the Mediterranean allowed Amanda to let the canvas float before bringing it back onto the rocks, where the heat of the sun helped it dry quickly. The process was physical and responsive, with each work carrying traces of the place in which it was made.
Alongside the landscape itself, the solitude of the residency brought more personal reflections into the collection, with prose appearing throughout the works and stars becoming a recurring motif.
‘Another thing you always find when very remote, is stars. There is a strong star motif throughout the collection and in the final drop I refer to them as the map of the night. Really it’s about a very hidden part of my life that could be rather dark, but I’m choosing to see the stars,’ she says.
The stars give the final chapter a more personal layer, carrying Amanda’s reflections on memory, perspective and the parts of an experience that stay with us long after a place has been left behind.
For Amanda, what remains is a feeling of calm. ‘They sort of tell you everything is going to be ok. I’ve spent a lot of time with them hanging in my studio, they bring a tangible presence of calm. People will stand in front of them and just stare for a long time. They’re very peaceful.’
The Colour of Water unfolds across three releases: Rain like kisses from heaven, Greeted by spring wildflowers and Stars of the sea, with each chapter drawn from a different moment of Amanda’s time in Greece.
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