Jonathan Powell’s work incorporates ideas of shelter and utopia which he explores through painting and drawing.
His vision When We Build Again depicts den-like structures as if created by children, cobbled together out of the building blocks salvaged from the remains of the previous buildings and cities. They are flawed buildings of the future, constructive as development of the regeneration process leaving a trail of derelict, crumbling buildings which themselves will eventually become monuments to past failures. His imagined spaces are exterior psychological structures – isolated but delicately connected, forming a precarious city on stilts. Some have been abandoned, some never occupied and some incomplete. These paintings witness architectural invention and a vehement search for the primal need of shelter.
Jonathan studied at Swansea Metropolitan University gaining an MA Distinction in Contemporary dialogues in 2012. Since 2007 Jonathan has been Curator and Director at Elysium Gallery, Swansea and is also the initiator behind the Beep: Wales International Painting Prize.