

What is a sea flower? A plant by the sea? Or a plant of or in the sea? It could refer to the coastal floral community, or to the seaweeds, or even those extraordinary marine creatures the sea anemones. Basically, it’s about making a body of work that combines and juxtaposes two common subjects in my work. The sea and plants.
My interest in wildflowers started as a young boy in North Cornwall, wandering the lanes and footpaths with my mother. I remember the two of us identifying the flowers along a verge and hedges as we walked out onto the cliffs; then pressing and drying the specimens in a flower press made by my father. Later, they were stuck in a scrapbook with my childish handwriting alongside. This was when I started learning to recognise and name, the first steps of selfeducation in natural history; trying to differentiate a pink campion from a ragged robin, a threecornered leek from a white bluebell, forgetmenots from speedwells. My mother knew her flowers, my father a few as well, and as gradually added to their basics, the journey began: her West Country flora, his Hampshire wildflowers and my own awareness of the natural world.
Coastal edges of land have largely escaped the ravages of modern agriculture. They are marginal, precarious and often rocky or sandy habitat –generally ignored or only used for rough grazing. Some has suffered urbanisation, been built upon, the blight of seafacing homes on some stretches,
maybe on the more sheltered coasts. But largely much of the coast has survived as botanically rich and beautiful, where a diverse range of species can cling on. Some of the rarest or least widespread species are found on our cliffs, coastal valley sides, salt marshes and dunescapes.
In the winter months we pine for the first blooms, but even in this wet and windy season, and even on the most exposed shores, there is always something in flower. The bitter cress, a little gorse, the odd pink campion, will always show themselves in these seagoverned microclimates. As the spring ramps up, gorse comes into its own, bringing the sunshine with it to glow across the scrub and clifftops, and then suddenly the whole place erupts into flower. Spring is the most colourful when the bluebells appear, escaping their woodlands to become Cornish coastal plants. The primroses mix with squill,
campion, ox eyes, vetches and thrift in an amazing array of colour and shapes, carpeting the slopes and cliffs. Here, huge cushions of flowerrich turf, alive with bees and butterflies, take us into and through the summer. The small and tiny grow between the daisies and spurrey, the cranesbills and cresses, the rock crop and the clovers. At the back of the beach the sands are colonised by sea beet, sea kale and sea rocket – greens for the eye and the plate.
On the Lizard, that botanically rich bit of Cornwall, dozens of incredibly rare species are now receiving attention in a scramble to bring them back from the brink, to prevent their loss and extinction, with habitat conservation, recreation and grazing. These plants are at the edge of their distribution ranges or just geologically finicky. Other stretches of the Cornish coast also host unusual, localised plants like the sand crocus near Fowey, the sea daffodil of Marazion or the sea lavender of Logan Rock.
My studio shed sits at the water’s edge just above the reach of the winter waves on a ledge halfway down the slope of a cliff. Here in my doorway, I can work looking across a meter of cliff edge and out, down and onto the jostling sea that leads the eye out to Lands End on the skyline. I am acutely aware of this bit of cliff, as it changes in colour and form daily, monthly, seasonally. At my feet clumps of thrift, vivid pink to ochre to chalkywhite, poke out of their hairy green bases while the kidney vetch sits alongside, also changing with the season when the yellow petals
gradually warm to turmeric and then orange and even rust red, almost clashing with the blue scabious alongside. This place is a tapestry of colourful complexity – a blending, merging mass of diversity. Just within a few feet of my doorway a dozen or more different plants provide colour and texture.
On Scilly, escapees of the flower industry and the exotic gardens flee out onto the Islands’ edges and
along the back of the beaches to populate the margins of fields and the edges of footpaths where they sit alongside the now rare agricultural weeds and the Scillonian endemics. This unusual botanical mixture floats on the small rocky islands out in the Atlantic where the combination of low, nonintensive agriculture and marginal conditions and a mild, yet windy, climate, allow for their survival. To see the St
Martin’s buttercup alongside weasel snout in a small sandy field, or the dwarf pansy with the orange birdsfoot, both with the blue seas as a backdrop, is life affirming.
The arable fields of West Pentire on the coast near Polly Joke are quite extraordinary, the ultimate example of flowerrich meadows; fields of such intense vivid colour where over 150 species of flowering plant have been recorded, as well as the rough poppy, long headed poppy and the common poppy. It’s a challenge to paint the poppies next to the corn marigolds and all the more subtle flowers in between swaying in the sea breeze with the coast behind. Is it a pictorial cliche to paint this flower display? Or is it about a certain nostalgia left from our parents’ prewar days, a yearning for a time when farming was slower and less costly and there was still space for nature’s magnificence? Painting amidst fields of such colour is one way of still experiencing and witnessing a Cornish biodiverse hot spot.
Winter 2024–25
I am standing at my easel on the clifftop. At my feet are a few pale primroses, out in front is the sea, the Atlantic in its continuously shifting, churning and foaming glory. The primroses are small and still, tucked down out of the coastal breezes but turned towards the weak winter sunlight. And that is what I am painting, that contrast; size and scale; flowers
and ocean, the powerless and the forceful. The tiny and (maybe insignificant) plants alongside the immense and powerful sea.
I’m also thinking about seasonality. Primroses are signifiers of a new year, the spring that is on its way; they mark change. Ironically, their own flowering season is changing, becoming earlier each year. Because of climate change, wildflowers in Britain are flowering an average of 26 days earlier than they did before 1987. There are ecological risks associated with earlier flowering times; ecological mismatch occurs when a relationship between wildlife is interrupted by changes in the timing of lifecycle events. Climate warming or extra rainfall also have immediate effects that are subtler. For example, most plant species are ‘losers’ in reproductive terms when heated – growing fewer flowers or producing fewer or lighter seeds.
These changes also impact pollinating insects visiting the flower as they will need to visit more flowers, more frequently, to gather the same amount of food. Overall, climate change may disturb the viability of some wildflower species and their pollinators.
These plants have always been here, on this cliff by the sea. The landscape was industrialised, ransacked, abused for the copper and tin beneath, stripped of much of its vegetation and soil, dug into, peeled back, turned over, blasted and mined until the infinite became finite, and eventually the spoilage halted.
Even then the plants returned, the primroses insisted on decorating the slopes once again, healing the cliffs with their presence. The paleyellow blossoms, delicate and beautiful against the rugged, harsh cliff. Their continual presence, their resilience to the adversity of the passing season, the past upheavals seems both a little hopeful and optimistic.
Sea Daffodil
We met before
In those warm dunes
By another sea
On another shore
Where I was a visitor
Just like those moths
That fluttered around you
Attracted by your slender pale beauty
Spectral in the balmy nights
Glowing like moonlight
You were christened here
In our down to earth Cornish ways
Like some bogstandard bloom
Cut for the vase
Ignoring your fleeting ornate fancy
Your continental lily exoticism
Stepping just onto our coast
From those far away haunts
Unlike the determined snails
That want to remove every fluorescence
Graze you away like some plain salad
And despite the heavy stepped tourists
The beachgoers who only see the sun
And the sea
welcome your presence to our shores
Appreciate the effort you made
But do wonder why you bothered to come at all.
August 2024.
Big bold blue pompons
Sway elegantly in the sea breeze
Tottering on their skinny sturdy stems
Hovering over the dunes
Buzzing with their bees
A South African vision
Exotic and vibrant
Transported from the Transvaal
They have colonised this place
Carpeting the sands of Scilly
With their smothering beauty
Naturalised
To colour the coast blue
While the dark Eastern Isles
Sit still on the aquamarine sea behind.
August 2024.
I had heard that the sea daffodils were in flower.
Marazion was wet. The horizontal rain was hitting the windscreen and the car park sign said ‘full’. found one empty space and strolled out onto a windy empty beach; the visitors were hiding from the weather in cafés and cars.
A flash of white on the dunes gave the daffodils’ presence away, I didn’t have to wander the dunes looking for them this time. I could find only three clumps of the plants, one was in flower and two in bud, buffeted and blowing around in the gales. sat on the sand, umbrella in hand and painted them against the backdrop of the grey sea; bands of white surf rolling in across my composition under a falling sky. The rain blew along the beach, hitting me and the daffodils from my left, but apart from a few kitesurfers we were alone for a moment.
Big brown and grey garden snails cruised up and down the straplike leaves munching as they went; whenever they approached the flowers themselves flicked them off, worried that they would consume the actual blossoms and destroy my subject before could paint them.
The white petals glowed in the gloomy daylight, delicate and complex, bonelike with their thin, sharp spindly forms. Looking closely, a central green line ran along each petal and then down the pale green stalk. The leaves were bluegreen, fleshy, tapering to a yelloworange point. Razor sharp marram grass spines grew through the daffodils, mingled with them and surrounded them. Where the flowers had finished, a cross of shrunk desiccated petals hung on to the top of the developing seedhead; this was a plant with far more character than its namesake, and with more presence. Maybe the plants’ rareness and situation were part of it: marginal, living on a knife edge on this shore between the approaching tides, the snails and the soon to arrive tourists’ unseeing and trampling feet.
August 2024.
Barely plantlike
The rock crop clings its crumbs
Of cool candied pale pink
As decoration between hedge top stones
Sitting basking in sunlight
It looks edible, a sweet nibble
I lean in close
To where the radiated warmth of rock Meets my cheek
And the perfumed slight scent
Comes into range
Rising from those burst massed stars
Peeking up to my beelike approach. 2020.
A dedicated environmentalist and true polymath, Jackson’s holistic approach to his subject seamlessly blends art and politics providing a springboard to create a hugely varied body of work unconstrained by format or scale.
Jackson’s artistic practice ranges from his trademark visceral plein-air sessions to studio work and embraces an extensive range of materials and techniques including mixed media, large canvases, print-making and sculpture.
The son of artists, Jackson was born in Blandford, Dorset in 1961. While studying Zoology at Oxford University he spent most of his time painting and attending courses at Ruskin College of Art. On gaining his degree he travelled extensively and independently, painting wherever he went before putting down roots in Cornwall with his wife Caroline in 1984.
Jackson’s focus on the complexity, diversity and fragility of the natural world has led to artist-inresidencies on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, the Eden Project and for nearly 20 years Glastonbury Festival which has become a staple of his annual working calendar.
Over the past forty years Jackson has had numerous art publications released to accompany his exhibitions.
Six monographs on Jackson have been published by Lund Humphries depicting his career so far; A New Genre of Landscape Painting (2010), Sketchbooks (2012), A Kurt Jackson Bestiary (2015), Kurt Jackson’s Botanical Landscape (2019), Kurt Jackson’s Sea (2021) and Kurt Jackson’s Rivers (2024). A Sansom & Company published book based on his touring exhibition Place was released in 2014.
Jackson regularly contributes to radio and television and presents environmentally informed art documentaries
for the BBC and was the subject for an award-winning BBC documentary, A Picture of Britain. He has an Honorary Doctorate (DLitt) from Exeter University and is an Honorary Fellow of St Peter’s College, Oxford University and an Honorary Fellow of Arts University Plymouth and a Bard of the Gorsedh Kernow (Cornish Gorsedd). He is an ambassador for Survival International and frequently works with Greenpeace, Surfers Against Sewage, Friends of the Earth and The Wildlife Trusts. He is a patron of human rights charity Prisoners of Conscience. He is an academician at the Royal West of England Academy.
Kurt Jackson and his wife Caroline live and work in the most-westerly town in Britain, St Just-in-Penwith where in 2015 they set up the Jackson Foundation. Kurt and Caroline have three grown children and eight young grandchildren.
Jackson Foundation
North Row | St Just | tr19 7lb info@kurtjackson.com
jacksonfoundationgallery.com
+44 (0) 1736 787638
jacksonfoundation
f
@jacksonfgallery
@jacksonfgallery
cover Roseland, sea aster and sea mayweed. 2021
3 West from a Cornish flower-rich meadow one evening. 2024
4 Thrift on the rocks at the back of the beach. 2024
media and collage on museum board
5 Evening over the hedge to the sea. 2024 mixed media on museum board
6 Evening ox-eyes. 2024 mixed media on paper
× 22cm £3,500
7 Spring hedges, through the gorse to the neighbours. Lockdown. 2020
8 Sea cabbage, wild radish, Long Rock. 2024
9 Sea holly, hot Marazion. Blue sky, blue sea, blue sea holly. 2024
10 Bounds Hill, Cape. Summer. 2021
11 Lots of weather. 2021
12 Daisies at the back of the beach, sea mayweed. 2021
and collage on wood panel
× 60cm £8,500
× 60cm
13 West Pentire fields. Poppies, corn marigolds etc. 2024
media on museum board
× 60cm £8,500
14 West Pentire. I can’t hear the sea, only the skylarks. etc. 2024
15 Devil’s Frying pan. Lizard’s rare clovers. 2017
media on wood panel
× 60cm £8,500
× 60cm £8,500
16 Sea daffodil, there are only half a dozen plants but snails etc. 2024 mixed media on museum board 50 × 50cm £7,500
18 Dreamy stuff. 2018 mixed media on canvas board 60 × 60cm £8,500
19 Seaweed, sea glass. 2022
mixed media on wood panel
60 × 60cm £8,500
20 The end of summer. The knapweed has finished flowering. 2023 mixed media on wood panel
60 × 60cm £8,500
21 Sun on the gorse, sun on the sea, sun behind the blackthorn. 2021 mixed media on paper
57 × 60cm £8,500
22 Distant sea, some sun with gorse and bramble and wren chatter. 2021 mixed media on paper 57 × 60cm £8,500
23 Sea Flowers. Rain on Cape Cornwall. The only colour etc. 2023 mixed media on wood panel
60 × 60cm £8,500
24 Big crinkly leaves of sea kale, Appletree Bay, Tresco. 2024
mixed medium on museum board
25 North Cornwall, fields and hedges. 2024
mixed media on paper
50 × 50cm £7,500
57 × 61cm £8,500
26 At the back of the beach are the marram grass, catsear, etc. 2024
mixed medium on museum board
27 Just above the tideline sea sandwort grows, etc. 2024
mixed medium on museum board 60 × 60cm £8,500
28 Pentle Bay, Tresco. Blue and white Agapanthus etc. 2024
mixed medium on museum board 60 × 60cm £8,500
30 Low water with tree mallow, Bryher, Scilly. 2024
mixed media on museum board 50 × 50cm NFS
31 Scilly Lily. 2024
mixed media on museum board 22 × 22cm £3,500
31 Fennel and boats, Scilly. 2024
mixed media on museum board 22 × 22cm £3,500
32 Sea anemones on Saffron Cove. Low water etc. 2024
mixed medium on museum board 60 × 60cm £8,500
33 Mullein on the dunes, Gwithian Towans. 2024
mixed medium on museum board
× 50cm £7,500
34 Floral cliff. Carn Gloose, the morning mist lifts slowly. 2024
mixed media on paper 57 × 59cm £8,500
35 Above Kynance. Ling, bog heather, bell heather etc 2024
mixed medium on museum board
36 Cliff top, High Cliff. 2024
mixed media on canvas board 60 × 60cm £8,500
37 Zigzag clover on Tresco. 2024
38 Botallack Cliff. 2023
39 Winter dwarf elm and old man’s beard, Lizard. 2023
media on canvas board
40 Lane to the sea, Lizard elm tunnel. 2022 mixed media on paper
41 When gorse is in blossom, kissing is in season. 2021 mixed media on museum board
× 60cm £8,500
×
× 43cm £6,500
42 Sea bindweed hiding in the dunes, Marazion. 2024 mixed media on canvas board 40 × 40cm £6,500
43 Sea buckthorn, sea aster and sea mayweed from Sennen. 2024 oil on canvas board 40 × 40cm £6,500
44 Sea orache, Saffron Cove, Tresco. 2024
media on paper
45 Morning, bright light. 2020
45 Blue skies, golden gorse, the neighbours. 2020 mixed media on museum board
× 26cm £4,000
46 Cornish estuary, bluebell sycamore and blackbird song. 2024 mixed media on museum board
× 30cm £5,000
60 × 60cm £8,500
46 On Castle Down Heath, Tresco. 2024
mixed media on paper 30 × 30cm £5,000
47 Cornish sea palm. 2024
mixed media on museum board
47 Cliff. 2024. mixed media on museum board
× 30cm £5,000
× 30cm £5,000
48 Cornish sea cabbage. 2024
48 Mounts Bay. Sea campion, thrift, kidney vetch. 2024
49 Drizzle, mizzle, drizzle, thrift. 2020
49 Tail end of the poppy season, West Pentire. 2024
50 Sea daffodil, Marazion. 2024
52 Sennen sea asters. 2024
52 Old foxglove stems above Bryher. 2024
53 Scilly palms, nightfall. 2024
53 Scilly Agapanthus, Bryher. 2024
54 Moon, elm and sea. 2023
54 Palms and crow garlic on Tresco. 2024
55 Tresco Agapanthus and Eastern Isles. 2024
55 Early morning, Scilly sea rocket. 2024
56 Popplestones, rock samphire, Bryher. 2024
57 Floral Scilly. 2024
57 Longrock sea radish. 2023
58 Pink jellies, Sennen Cove. 2024
58 Compass jellyfish, Scilly. 2024
59 Elm by the sea. 2022
59 Lansallos Cornish coast path elms. 2022
60 Penlee Point, morning sunlight, plantain, thrift, vetchetc 2024
61 Beach still life, Marazion. 2024
61 A few early Spring flowers. 2022
62 Carn Gloose winter heliotrope, campion and snow drops. 2023
63 On the first day of autumn, thrift, heather, tormentil, bramble. 2022
63 Scilly evening thistles. 2013
64 Catsears 1. 2024. monoprint
64 Catsears 2. 2024 monoprint
65 Wild carrot 1. 2024 monoprint
65 Wild carrot 2. 2024 monoprint
67 A Cornish Tapestry. 2024 mixed media and collage on canvas
68 First day of Spring. 2022 mixed media on canvas
69 On Cape Cornwall, a few autumn flowers. 2024 mixed media on museum board
69 Red and green anemones and Lands End. 2012 mixed media on museum board
70 My favourite ragwort field. 2024 mixed media on canvas
72 Sea radish, sea rocket. 2024 mixed media and collage on canvas
not in the catalogue
00 Cliff top evening gorse. 2023 mixed media on paper
×
£3,500
£3,500
£50,000
£24,000
00 Elm Zawn. 2023 mixed media on paper 40 ×
00 Seaside stichwort, Queen Anne’s lace and three-cornered leek. 2024 mixed media on paper 22 × 22cm £3,500
00 Seaside wild strawberry, celandine and buttercup. 2024 mixed media on paper 22 × 22cm £3,500
00 Daymer, Summer. 2018 mixed media on board 12 × 15cm £3,000
00 Sea clover. 2024 monoprint
00 Campion and foxgloves. 2024 monoprint
00 Foxgloves, campion, Evening. 2024 monoprint
00 One piece of seabed. 2020 mixed media on paper
canvases
00 Thrift, sea pink. 2024 oil on canvas 91.5 × 91.5cm £24,000
00 Clifftop blackthorn blossom. 2011 mixed media on linen 112 × 119cm £35,000