Artist Presentation - Kerry Jones

Kerry Jones is a multimedia Artist based in the Scottish Borders,  before moving to the Borders,  kerry gained her degree in Hull, England. The work she is doing now consists of a variety of film making,  sound archives and making still images, which is a very different style from when she left her studies.
Kerry has always had a passion for time travel and a curiosity about the past and present.  One of her first projects started off in an abandoned factory, where coal and coke was everywhere and it was completely overgrown.  She decided to use this factory for an Art piece by laying turf on the floor to resemble coke slabs growing out.  Not long after this,  Kerry done a similar project in "the square" chapel in Halifax.  This time,  she was interested in the idea of history and packaging.  There were numerous clear bags suspended from the beams containing dirt,  this was to represent sanitising and packaging in the past. As well as a few other projects,  Kerry also took part in covering the front of an abandoned dole office with words taken from the Guardian and TV guide,  she was inspired by the cut up technique by William Burroughs.
After realising that she wasn't making enough money through her art work,  Kerry decided to train as a carpenter, this lead to her new passion for making giant puppets.  She created them based on ideas of stereotypes and took them to festivals,  book fairs and schools.  she liked the social side of her work, bringing people together within the community and entertaining a variety of age groups.
Continuing her Art work working within the community,  Kerry worked as part of a group with other Artists to create a display in 3 windows throughout the town of Galashiels.  The theme was 100 years in history of local children.  The first window display contained a film projector playing a short film containing shadow puppets,  this was to entertain children. the year for this window display was set to represent 1900-1945. A second window represented 1945-1975 and the third was inspired by 1980-present. Each window was different from the next with use of old photographs from that era. This project provided Kerry with a curiosity for using her skills to alter old pictures of Galashiels.
Kerry began to take old photos of Galashiels  from approximately 1930s and add modern day clothing on the people in the pictures.  The idea behind this was to create a unique series of images influenced by time travel.  She also coloured in the sky blue and add features to the buildings in the pictures,  for this she used a variety of media including pens, oil pastels and paint.

 Kerry's art work was soon noticed and she was asked to create a series of 6 images for a shop window in Hawick for an exhibition,  below are a couple of images that were included :

Kerry decided to expand her talent by using a mixture of sound and still images to make funny videos. She also included her puppets in some of these videos,  this idea was inspired by the recent work she had done. One video she made was called Virtually nonexistent,  she liked the idea of a mind warp. 

Kerry's newest adventure involves working Alchemy film festival where her film work has been presented. 

I really enjoyed meeting Kerry, she is an enthusiastic person and very talented.  I really like her style of work and found that I shared a few common interests.  I am inspired by the way she works and I am very interested to see what else she will be doing in the future.