Jack Frame is a British artist whose tree paintings occupy a singular position in contemporary British landscape art — works that are simultaneously rooted in the oldest traditions of the medium and entirely their own in their visual intelligence and material richness.
Born in Kent in 1983 and trained at Glasgow School of Art, where his 2007 degree show sold out entirely, Frame has built a practice defined by sustained formal investigation of a single subject: the tree, taken out of context and placed in a simple, elemental space, stripped of the landscape that surrounds it so that its essential form — proportion, balance, tonal harmony — can be examined without distraction. The approach is both formally rigorous and deeply contemplative. "Painting offers me a chance to be present, to be a part of the world," he has said — and the work carries that quality of sustained attention in every surface.
He paints en plein air wherever possible, each composition a first-hand record of time spent in the presence of his subject. Back in the studio, he works in oils and acrylics over backgrounds of metal leaf — gold and silver — engaging with gilding, enamelling, and marbling processes drawn from medieval and Japanese artistic traditions. The resulting surfaces carry a depth and luminosity that purely painted works cannot achieve: the precious metal catching and holding light with an intensity that shifts with the time of day and the angle of viewing.
His influences range from Bosch to Constable, from medieval painting to Japanese screen printing — a breadth that gives his work the depth of intention and romantic refinement that distinguishes it from more straightforwardly decorative tree painting. His awards include the GSA Painting Prize, the Standard Life Award, and the Jolomo Award for Landscape Painting (2009). His collectors include Kate Hudson, Muriel Gray, and Matt Bellamy of Muse.
Silver Dawn and Gilded Blossom — available through Creed Gallery, Ascot — are among his most formally accomplished works in precious metal leaf. Available through Creed Gallery, Ascot, for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey, Sunninghill, and London.
