The Welsh artist Colin Jones considered that he belonged to what he described
as the 'Catholic Ghetto'. He was fond of abstract discussion, primarily
regarding Catholicism and Wales; both these concerns inspired his art. The blue
permanence of his pictures suggest a spiritual condition and a quest for a
fundamental something that dispensed with detail.
His subjects; isolated people or their remote Welsh environment, further
expressed an elemental interest in a living condition. In the Rhondda, he found
a distinct Welsh reality that closely affected his work. This produced on the
one hand, personable and struggling individuals and on the other, a hard-edged
appearance rarely relieved by the curve of a chapel window or the contour of an
overbearing hill. This dichotomy, of intense individuality and a uniform
aesthetic, is reflected in his pictures.
The aesthetic triumphs, for the pictures are both linear and refined. The
disappointment, danger or uncertainty of the Rhondda does not assail those
viewing his pictures. They find instead the accepted fact of a chapel or a
person without all its accepted consequences.
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