oils on linen Framed: 113 x 103 x 4cm "Ceunant" in Welsh. Slate mining has left vast chasms inside the mountains of Eryri (Snowdonia). From the 19th century, miners used to blast out huge slabs of slate inside the mountains. All of the awesome fire and danger of that industry now abandoned to the underworld, stilled now to drips of water and echoes. Original oil SOLD. (Available as giclée print or greeting card)
oils on linen Framed: 113 x 103 x 4cm 2022 A poem by Charles Causley. Causley a solitary man and lifelong resident of Launceston, Cornwall wrote this poem musing as an older man on his lot. After visiting his humble house "Cypress Well" one rainy dark winters afternoon. I sat on the floor beside his desk, typewriter, books, chair, and piano and I was overwhelmed by a sense of sadness but also the beauty in his eye as he dwelt on the passing of time. Original oil SOLD (Available as giclée print or greeting card)
Oils on linen 103 x 113 x 4cm framed 2022. I felt compelled to register, in my own way, the eruption of mad violence upon this vast country and its proud folk. Amidst war and gunshot fracturing this land's every fibre, I have discovered its beauty and strength. A blue and gold flag morphs into a juice-green rhapsody which soars out above the guns and I suddenly hear the sound of a simple lyre, like a blackbird's early morning song. Original oil SOLD ( Available as giclée print or greeting card)
oils on linen 2019 103cm x 113cm signed and framed. Travelling from Machynlleth to Aberdyfi the road twists and turns, clinging to the very edges of cliffs which reveal sudden breath-taking elevations beside the Dyfi. Eventually you emerge into a scrambled together stretched seaside village that blinks out over a sandbank strewn estuary and the searing white light of the Celtic Sea, full of small bobbing fishing boats and crying gulls. Original framed oil painting. POA.
oils on linen 2019 103 x 113 x 4 cm framed A small bend in the road of a village near to the ancient town of Machynlleth. A massive 18th century waterwheel still attached to its crumbling building, which drips with fluorescent lichens and bleeding ores, orange and gold on grey stone. An adjacent waterfall thunders over huge boulders beside the structure. Original oil SOLD (Also available as giclée print or greeting card)
oils on linen 2019 103 x113 x 4 cm As flooding increases and the sheer uncertainty of living weighs heavy as an anchor on us all in Britain today - especially since Brexit - I felt compelled to convey my feelings of isolation, despair and inundation, while also maintaining the hope of sailing into calmer waters eventually. Life still thriving in the depths! Original oil SOLD ( Available as giclée print and greeting card)
oils on linen 70cm x 70cm x 4cm (framed) 2019 In reality, a curious little hamlet in mid Wales nestling in the Dyfi Valley, where until very recently I lived and worked. Mallwyd translates as "The Grey Place". Here shown with the nearby River Dyfi roaring in terrifying spate, and Rhiannon, a wild spirit of Welsh mythology caught up in its violence and beauty. Original oil painting now in the collection of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, England. ( Available as giclée print or greeting card)
oils on linen 113cm x 103cm x 4cm signed and framed 2019 The title Braich Goch can literally be translated as Red Arm. It is the name of an old slate mine seam/complex in mid and north Wales, particularly the around the area of Corris. It has left a beautiful devastation on the landscape. You feel at once inside and outside the mountains. They are now carpeted in rich green lichens and luminous turquoise slabs lying in the Welsh drizzle and moss, with the constant noise of thundering water somewhere... Original oil painting (framed). Last one of the Welsh Slate Mine series. POA
oils on linen 90cm x 100cm x 4cm (framed) 2019 Original framed oil painting. This work conveys fond memories and luminous light from my time as Artist in Residence to the magnificent Coventry Cathedral. When the sun shines through the stained glass, it fractures into shimmering kaleidoscope colours across the vast dark smooth floor, an elevating spiritual experience in itself. POA.
oils on linen 20" x 16" ( This painting is framed + approx 3mm all round) 2024 POA. Prithvi ( an ancient term referring to the earth) is inspired by the indefatigable naturalist, broadcaster and advocate for the preservation of the natural world Sir David Attenborough. The image of an almost fossilised bird disappearing under rising flood waters gradually emerged. It also reminds me in a curious way of 'Concorde' the supersonic aeroplane that used to crash the sound barrier twice a week when I lived near Bushey Park in London. It's a lament really on everything we have lost and are losing. However, the bright colours offer hope for survival and renewal eventually...
#1 In the chalk stream series Oils on linen 870mm x 980mm Framed 2024 Part of chalk stream series, begun in the Spring of 2024. 'Halcyon' was a mythical bird in Greek mythology and can also be attributed to a Kingfisher. The Kingfisher clad in its "razor blue" streaks at speed downstream leaving one in awe of its sudden appearance and fluorescent colours. Here is my lyrically abstracted interpretation of the bird zipping down a chalk stream. Although often glimpsed on the River Dyfi and River Kennet, I have also witnessed a pair of Kingfishers in mid winter over the sea rock pools at Aberystwyth.
I am known to specialise in portraiture. I really enjoy meeting the subject and discussing their requirements and wishes. It is quite an intimate acquaintance as an oil painting must reflect the personality and history of the subject, so I will ask quite a lot about you and take heaps of photographs of you from all angles. I work from photographs but I like to build up a good acquaintance with the sitter. A portrait is after all a permanent remembrance of you! Painted in oils on Italian linen it will actually last for centuries ...to pass down the generations unchanged. Contact me for a free quote? Portrait depicted: Horticulturist Lisa Cunningham - Allsop oils on linen. 2018. Approx 70cm x 70cm. Portrait of a horticulturist friend. The background blooms are abstracted blue hydrangea, Lisa's favourite flowers. In the sitter's private collection.
Framed original oil on canvas 30" x 40" ( + 3.5 cm frame depth ) was painted as part of the Artist in Residence to Coventry Cathedral appointment in 2012 ( actually completed in 2014). I was very moved by the procession of dignitaries on the 50th anniversary, when the Cathedral hosted Anne, Princess Royal, and the Archbishop of Canterbury ( at that time) Dr. Rowan Williams plus he Dean and Canons of Coventry. The old and the new cathedrals are woven into each other and the midday light was almost fluorescent inside the packed congregation on rows and rows of seats. The procession was like a moving train through my half closed eyes and the pounding organ music added mightily to awesome effect. Original Oil £1200 ( available as giclée print and greeting card )
Oils on linen 700 mm x 600 mm. 2024. Private commission. The renowned literary scholar & poet Professor Angela Leighton FBA. This commission was a delight from start to finish. My client has strong roots in Yorkshire and Italy (Naples and Sicily) and so immediately geology came to mind and most notably limestone pavement, so evocative to me of Yorkshire; ( a line in the poem 'A Limestone Pavement' written by Angela suggested the title of the portrait as well. The formidable volcanoes Vesuvius and Etna are of course major geological features to southern Italy ). My brief was to be as free as I liked and to abstract the portrait as far as I would dare! I also listened to the piece of music written by her late father, composer Kenneth Leighton: ' Drop, Drop, Slow Tears' and I was minded to depict Angela in an abstracted contemplative pose, perhaps in absorption of lacrimae rerum ( tears of things), the latin phrase that derives from Book I, line 462 of the Aeneid, by Roman poet Virgil (c. 29 - 19 BC). We are currently living in such flux, in turbulent and troubling times and this all just felt "right" as a title and to perhaps sum up the poet's lot to make sense of it all with eloquence and composure. I placed the central image of Angela - in a familiar to herself peaceful pose - within facetted limestone pavement cracking across the composition. The human form as part of the growth, deterioration and ultimate and inevitable renaissance of life within swirls analogous of volcanic activity. Angela's words have been very affecting and I have felt so enriched working on this commission with her.
oils on linen (framed) 2024 48 x 53 x 3 cm Especially created for the 2024 Cropredy Convention Festival and depicting the abstracted faces of the Cropredy crowd at night as seen by Fairport Convention. A sea of warmth and love looking back at them. The image gradually morphs the faces into a big red heart. POA
Most of the paintings featured on this site are available as cards and prints, ordering directly from Jill Swarbrick-Banks herself. Cards come as a pack of five, its mix and/or match, you choose! Giclée prints are also available of the paintings. They come as A2 in size £85 each ( signed on request) All orders are inclusive of P&P (UK)
All the work on this website is the © copyright of Jill Swarbrick-Banks and generally available as greeting cards , a pack of five blank inside cards of your choice - per pack £10, and beautiful giclée prints £85 each. The prints come as A2 size but can be printed smaller or larger and they come unframed, rolled in acid free tissue paper inside a robust cardboard tube.
Painted in 1992, Hydref was created in Groningen, the Netherlands that Autumn. A shaft of sunlight suddenly grew into a vibrant diagonal across the Burnt Sienna background and I managed to outline the shapes within the sunbeam before it disappeared a minute or so later. Hydref in welsh for the Autumn & October. I was fascinated by the Celts at the time and the isle of Eire.
After a poem of the same name by W.B. Yeats. I was reading a book of poetry at the time by Yeats. The Irish Pub: "O'Ceallaigh's" in Groningen, run by Peter Kelly and Eva Spakman was my watering hole and refuge when I lived in Groningen in the 1990s. The pub remains a unique hub of Irish culture and warmth. It's a favourite haunt for Irish patriots and British ex-pats like myself. Eva Spakman is a talented artist and friend. We studied fine art painting together at the Kunst Academie (Art Academy) in Groningen.
Named after the Celtic goddess associated with a cult of the horse. I took the chalk hill figure of the White Horse of Uffington in southern England as the motif. The blues are an allusion to the other world. Oils on canvas Approx 50 x 70cm Approx: 2000. Sadly LOST in transit and whereabouts unknown!
