Jonny Drury BA (Hons) Fine Art

Jonny Drury is a painter whose work explores painting as revelation.

Artists’ Statement

Rooted in the unconscious, spirituality and contemplative practice, my paintings unfold intuitively in a process of discovery and exploration into the hidden beauty of the ordinary everyday and wonder of timelessness.

“To the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, So he Sees.”
– William Blake

My paintings emerge through encounter with media and material, perception and imagination. To create in this way is to recognise that perception is never passive: seer and seen are already entwined, where boundaries between subject and object, inner and outer, dissolve. What is revealed arises in the beauty of the mundane. This way of painting is revealed by yielding, by letting the experience of art-making speak in its own language and rhythms. Art in this sense is a way of knowing. This is the ground of my practice: to let the everyday reveal its strangeness and simplicity, and to invite the viewer into the same kind of seeing.

Today from the wonderful Peak District, I bring my diverse background into a mature painting and coaching practice that invites viewers into moments of presence, imagination, and revelation.

Education

Since graduating with a BA (Hons) Contemporary Fine Art I’ve worked extensively on neurodivergent thinking and professional dialogue, both intensely creative areas. I have led storytelling programmes, managed community arts projects and founded an experimental music programme and label in Sheffield. I was the first Education Manager at Bloc Gallery Sheffield – co-designing creativity and identity workshops for young unemployed people / home-schooled children and refugees. I was programme lead for a private Mindfulness and Arts programme which integrated contemplative practice with creative processes.  I’ve supported artist-educators and worked on public projects such as Leeds Artforms where I developed workshops based on sacred art traditions as tools for youth self-empowerment and identity creation.

I now work full time as a painter and creative coach, bringing years of new experiences into the creative processes of myself and my clients.