Jason Hicklin | Out of Darkness: Boxed Set

23 November - 23 December 2022

The Pembrokeshire coast is one of the most varied, dramatic and celebrated coastlines in the world, and to anyone with even a passing familiarity with Jason’s work, its appeal to him should be obvious. For the last two years, he has been exploring the land and the islands situated off it, on foot and by boat, tracing every contour of its cliffs, sketching its promontories and outcrops and the ever shifting, immense body of water which seems to constantly threaten the very existence of the land itself. Out of Darkness is the result of this endeavour. It is quite possibly the finest testament to date of Jason’s intrepidity as an explorer of both landscape and the etching process.

Jason Hicklin and Eames Fine Art are delighted to be launching 'Out of Darkness', a boxed set of the complete Pembrokeshire etchings. Published in an edition of five, this boxed set brings together 38 etchings with written contributions from the writers of the 26 Group, with whom Jason formed a bond during past projects such as A Common Place, 2020, with Eames Fine Art.

Each writer has written a poem in response to these stunning etchings. The poems were then etched and printed by Jason Hicklin to accompany each of the four sections of this body of work.

The custom made box inludes 38 of the Pembrokeshire etchings, including exclusive details from the 'Walking the Island 2021' series. The inside of the box is beautifully lined with etchings printed in gold ink. Each box has a colophon page numbered and signed by Jason Hicklin and Eames Fine Art.

Out of Darkness | Boxed Set 2022

This boxed set of 38 Pembrokeshire etchings is an edition of 4 plus one artist's proof, published by Eames Fine Art.

Including four commissioned poems by Martin Lee, Neil Baker, Therese Kieran and Elen Lewis, etched and printed on unique inserts.

With a colophon page, numbered and signed by the artist and Eames Fine Art.

Boxed set price: £4, 000

Please enquire below to purchase or call 0207 407 6561.

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Enquire to purchase

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Images from the launch at the Eames Fine Art Studio

Jason Hicklin with writers Martin Lee, Therese Kieran and Elen Lewis at the Eames Fine Art Studio during the launch of the boxed set.
Walking the Island: Ramsey Island

'The walk started with a boat trip across the strong currents of Ramsey Sound and through the jagged rocks named the Bitches. I landed at the small harbour to begin an anti-clockwise walk around the Island. Uninhabited and treeless I was walking on volcanic rocks with rain and mist blowing in from the ocean. The walk was following the shape of an island, weathered and eroded by the same ocean.'
Some Ramsey Islands: Martin Lee

It’s a question of how you see.

The walk of colour: rain enriched grass, a kaleidoscope of bluebells, purple heather, pink thrift, blue squill.

The walk of the sea: sunny days making the wave tops glint like lines of morse code, although there’s no distress call to be made here.

The walk of looking out: north to Skomer, east to the mainland, west to Ireland, south to Ynys Bery, a deepening of location from what else is close by.

The walk of incessant noise: a city of calling and crying, of swooping, up-draughts, a collision of specialisation, accompanied by the human joy of names – fulmar, guillemot, razorbill, chough.

The walk of weather: where some places offer only climate, here there are new squalls of rain, shafts of sunlight, buffetings of wind, descents of cloud delivered each hour, each minute.

The elemental walk: the monumentality of rock, bitten by the sun and rain’s etching acid, scoured and gouged into fissures and joints and notches.

It’s a question of what you sense.
Etchings
Pilgrimage: Walking the Coast, 2020

'St David’s Head is one of the Lands Ends of Wales and is steeped in history from Prehistoric remains, to the legends of the Welsh saints and evidence of ancient trade routes. It is this headland which this walk was centred upon. I began the walk from the expanse of St Brides Bay as the sun rose and followed the coastal path west before heading north overlooking Ramsey Sound and the Island. The path follows the contours of the cliffs and all the time the noise of the ocean was ever present. In the distance was the headland of Strumble Head and its lighthouse which was my destination and arrived at sunset.'
ONCE A PILGRIM: THERESE KIERAN

Stop. Take the time, inch closer to the salty bay

where peaks cluster ink-black and muscular

against the waxed light melting over Skomer.

You might get carried away to where the headland

hears your cry, out where the huge sky offers itself

to your frustrations in a pillow of silver light.

Sometimes, the horizon is held hostage to whispering mist

as the sea turns craquelure, but you will find succour
in The Blue Lagoon, by its deckled edge, in its soapy spume.

It is all weather, and whether you can master each peak

without missing something or someone. Here, you can be
the sole inhabitant of an outpost that in time inhabits your soul.

If only you can stop. Find the makings of prayer in extremity:

smooth, rough, variable in Porthgain, Solva, Carn Penberry.
Etchings
At Sea Level: Skomer Island

'The boat left from the tiny cove of St Justinians and headed south across St Brides Bay towards Skomer Island.

The boat was my base, I didn’t walk on the island but explored the cliffs and harbours from the sea. The movement was constant so the drawings were made quickly. The sound and smell of the sea and the seabirds haunted the island.'
WE HAVE NO HORIZON: NEIL BAKER

Tossed and adrift in this spindrift mist
while the seasons lose their edges, planes
amid the lurch of oily waves, again
I hear you call my name. Again we list
into the blown-foam streaks, the oozing white horse peaks, and curse the hour when we forget we are wrecked. Remember the sheltered bay out of view, ruined farmhouse, lichened stones that still stand on the pink campion headlands. Unequal land, phenomenal, confused
is there a greater tempest to create
before we can finally see things straight?
I could almost touch you with these hands.
How can we face what we can't withstand?
Walking the Coast 2021

"History is governed by geography" - G.M.Trevelyan 1876-1962

'These prints were the final ones I made for the show. My first visit to Pembrokeshire had been as a student in 1986,and I have been making trips to this coastline ever since. For the last two years St David's Head and the sketchbooks I have accumulated have been crucial to my work,I have walked its coastal path and explored its cliffs and islands from the decks of boats. These etchings conclude the Pembrokeshire odyssey and on my journey as an etcher this is where I am now.'
Y Diwedd/ The End: Elen Lewis

Find the beginning Cariad find the beginning,
then we'll reach the end.

Cliffs chant over ink-darkened waters etching chinks of light.

Show me white
pages of morning sky, space to trace meaning.

Throw me light
flecks from cliff hefts, space to get lost in.

Find Aber Yw and Yyns Devllyn, Pwll Whiting and Castell Coch, till we reach the end.

Crow-black, coal-black, bible-black, cave-black, sloe-black, slow, black.

Rather than words, shapes
loom and beyond, there is nothing, nowhere and everything.
A FILM BY JASON HICKLIN:

CREATING THE PEMBROKESHIRE ETCHINGS

This film was created in 2020 for an online exhibition at Eames Fine Art: 'Pembrokeshire' which is viewable on our website here.
Jason Hicklin and Vincent Eames discuss the exhibition at Eames Fine Art Studio

Watch the film HERE