Arusha Gallery

OPENING TOMORROW 13th March

Join us for the opening of John Abell’s Cariadon Y Mynydd: The Mountain Lovers with .stone.club and a conversation about art, folklore and magic.

13th March 2025
6 Percy Street, W1T 1DQ London
6–8pm

exhibition continues: 14th - 29th March 2025

The Mountain Lovers is a new body of paintings by John Abell. It’s informed by a deep connection with the landscape and mountains of his home, the welsh language, and traditions of storytelling and religious devotion.

Created over the course of a year, these paintings are profoundly tied to spiritual devotion, with the mountain serving as a mother, lover, friend, and comforter. As an avid hiker, John dedicates much of his time to walking through the landscape. This is reflected in these new works, veering towards an abstract expressionist way of understanding its beauty and the connectedness of the nature, the body, and the soul that it carries.

The titles are all in Welsh, the language John uses in his day to day life. Like many languages, is intricately tied to the landscape of its origins. It was important to John to emphasise the rich poetry of the Welsh language and its profound connection to the land, and to elevate it within his work.

John Abell (1986, Cardiff, Wales) lives and works in Pontypridd, Wales.
abell

John Abell (b. 1986) studied at Camberwell College of Art; he is currently based in Wales.

John is particularly known for his large-scale wood block prints and highly coloured watercolour paintings which explore life, love, lust and the human condition. The work is charged with a sense of fear and death, pessimism or even nihilism along with a large pinch of gallows humour. His aim is to represent human feeling, the world and himself as honestly as he can.
abell

Artworks:

Music of Love and Hunger, 2021
Drypoint and watercolour
50 x 44 cm

Music of Love and Hunger, 2021
Drypoint and watercolour
50 x 44 cm

Into the Waves (Blue), 2021
Drypoint and watercolour
45 x 39 cm

A New Eden, 2021
Drypoint and watercolour
65 x 53 cm

The Witches Fire, 2021
Drypoint and watercolour
50 x 44 cm

Tables Turned, 2021
Drypoint and watercolour
50 x 44 cm

For inquires please email [email protected]