Jai Llewellyn‘s paintings are about the process of mark making, the history of a line seen through an abstract picture of the future. Llewellyn works between painting and printmaking with no hierarchy, each discipline informs the other, both focusing on the relationships and juxtapositions of old and new, growth and decay, construction and deconstruction.
'For the past few of years I have been making small-scale paintings that are driven by personal experience. Painting for me is a constant struggle to find oneself, to find a truth via a material and process that is in constant flux. I want the work to be concrete yet fluid, resolved yet open, to point to a solution that is never quite reached. It is always a compromise between what I want to do and what the paint wants to do. I paint over and over, working on several pieces for relatively long periods of time, the final stage often coming quickly and being of the moment. Even though the paintings are laboured I want to keep the freshness and vitality of something that is new to me. To express emotion with an economy of imagery, I have an affinity with minimalist work but for me its not enough.
Painting is a physical activity, I need to feel a physical connection with the canvas, the paint and colour to create an emotional attachment. The painting needs to be beaten into shape to become mine, an extension of my physical being, before any kind of feeling is present. Everything needs to happen in the painting, I don’t rehearse or plan, I want my mistakes and workings to all be present on the canvas. When a painting is finished, a part of me has left.'