Alison Jones was born in Torquay and spent 5 years of her childhood in Nigeria. They left in a hurry as war refugees and went to Swansea. The original idea was to move to Syria after a year, but another war broke out, so they stayed in Wales. She studied ecology in Plymouth and some years later Art in the Landscape at Carmarthen in Wales. The final project on the course she made a meditation house in the forest at Coed Hills Art Space outside Cardiff. The building was made of living trees (willow and beach) woven into a double spiral labyrinth in a layout similar to an ammonites.
She came to La Gomera on holiday and accidentally found work in the Garden of Eden (Finca Argayall) and stayed there for a year. This was followed by several years teaching English as a classroom assistant in La Palma. Now she gives private English classes in Los Llanos and paints instead of sleeping.
She’s always loved legends (it seems that every Welsh mountain, castle and waterfall has a legend). So when she got to La Palma she started learning the local ones, and was inspired to try to capture their atmosphere as paintings. The pictures in the exhibition were painted over about the last year. She went to the places to soak up the atmosphere. When she went to Roque Idafe, a raven came up and tried to open her backpack to get at the cheese. Then he sang to her, and she sang a duet with him.
This exhibition will be open until May 31st, but it will be closed on Saturday 24th for election preparations.
