National Waterfront Museum Sets the Stage for a Stunning Sea-Inspired Artwork with New Commission Winner.

Who is Jacqui Symons?

Jacqui Symons is an artist printmaker who responds to the environment and our natural world, with a focus on detail and intimacy. 

Jacqui’s work explores concerns about climate change and the loss of nature and biodiversity, attempting to balance an appreciation for Earth’s beauty with a more serious message of irreversible damage.   

Her work concentrates on asking audiences and the people she works with to notice natural miracles, to appreciate the often unseen or small spectacle and rediscover the wonder of nature. 

This can take many forms though repeated processes and methods are an integral part of her practice. 

Time spent working on a piece is very important to Jacqui as an artist, both in the meaning of the final piece and as a personal process; work often involves laborious and time-consuming methods to produce work.

Since the start of her artistic career, Jacqui has created suspended artworks made from multiples, starting with ‘Together We Are Greater’ at Doncaster Art Gallery in 2010 and moving on to a specially-commissioned piece ‘Shoals of Prosperity’ in Hong Kong, a work called ‘Forget Me Not’ for the London Transport Museum and many others for various galleries and exhibitions. 

Since 2019, she has worked exclusively with natural colour and has eliminated the use of synthetic art materials from her practice, believing that her work and the creation of her work shouldn’t further damage the planet. 

Following a major gallery exhibition ‘Natural:History (a fable of progress)’ in early 2018, she was artist in residence at Kingsbrae Botanic Gardens in Canada where she explored large-scale nature-printmaking and it was here that an innocent question from a local artist about printmaking inks completely changed her focus to only use plant-based colour and dyes. 

She developed recipes and processes for printmaking with plant-based colour and from there expanded into working with textiles and natural dyes.  Jacqui has just published her first book ‘From Plant to Print’ with Crowood Press.

Jacqui’s work has been exhibited at various galleries and in public spaces including Pacific Place in Hong Kong, Gallery Oldham, The Manchester Contemporary, Blackwell House, Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, the London Transport Museum, Kingsbrae Botanic Garden and at London Design Week. Other clients include Chrysalis Arts, Hot Bed Press, Spike Print Studios, University of Manchester, Lime Arts, Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park, Lakeland Arts, Manchester Council and Chester Zoo.

What made you want to apply for the commission and submit a concept?

As the museum is based on the coast, I felt that bringing the experience and emotion of the sea inside the building was imperative. 

The atrium at the National Waterfront Museum is perfect for a suspended installation and I could instantly see how my idea might look in the space. 

The brief was appealing and I liked that it placed importance on sustainability – an essential factor for myself and my practice.

Having recently moved to South Wales, I’m also excited to make work for a national museum that is so close to where I live – what an honour.

What inspired you?

I was inspired by the colours of the sea and how the water moves with the wind, current and tides.  I’m aiming to recreate this movement and flow within the suspended textiles that will move in the atrium’s air currents.  I’m also hoping to bring references to the museum’s maritime history and industry into the work with pattern, shape and texture taken from artefacts held in its collection.

What are you most excited about for the process of creating the work?

I’m creating the piece from fabrics dyed entirely with natural colour, so primarily indigo but also bringing in dyes such as madder, which produces shades of red, weld which makes yellow and combines with indigo for some deep sea greens, and oak galls, which when mixed with iron produce beautiful tones of grey and grey-browns.  I’m excited about being able to produce such a large-scale installation from natural colour and, whilst it is a challenge, the subtle colours and hues achievable with natural dyes, makes the process worth it and is entirely fitting for a piece about the sea.

What do you hope visitors will get out of your work when they visit the museum?

Y Môr a Ni will welcome the Waterfront’s visitors, creating a focal point and inviting people to consider the ocean as a living and ever-changing entity, reflecting the museum’s maritime history and echoing the sea and the waters directly outside the building.  The mezzanine also allows for a different viewing perspective, encouraging visitors to see the work from a different level rather than seeing it just above their heads.

I want visitors to be able to visit again and again and see something different in the work each time, perhaps thinking about their own relationship with the sea, how it has affected the past and how it moulds the landscape of the local area.