Jethro Buck illustrates a kind of modern folklore. Trained in techniques of Indian Miniature Painting, his work references this tradition but is also infused with a contemporary playfulness and, above all, a reverence for nature.    

Buck’s paintings are linked to the earth in a more tangible way too. Following his art degree at Falmouth, he went to Udaipur to train with the Indian miniaturist, Ajay Sharma. On his return he took a place at the The Prince's School for Traditional Arts which further cemented the skills he had learnt in India. The immense detail in his work is achieved, as is the way in Indian miniature art, with the use of a squirrel hairbrush. The brush tapers to the thickness of a single curled hair at the tip which, with great practise and control, is used for the miniscule details in the work. He also produces his own paints, using the Indian method of grinding pigments and mixing the resulting powders with gum Arabic. These pigments are often minerals found in nature: Cinnabar, Lapis Lazuli, Malachite and Gold, to name a few. ‘What’s nice about natural colours is that they have been in the earth for thousands of years. It’s like the earth’s already mixed the colours for you’. JB 

 An extraordinary knowledge of the order and patterns within nature, the fan of tree branches or the ripples in water, are present in the work, in a way particular to the traditional arts. The new pieces in Golden use Buck’s delicate art to highlight the stark contrasts between our current levels of biodiversity and those of the past but it is not all doom and gloom. Even when painting many repeated images of modern-day, humans at their desks or taking selfies, Buck imbues the work with pattern and humour. He claims to counter the common dystopian view he wants to create work that ‘inspire the unfolding of positive futures’.  The idea of unfolding time is continually present and the distance and scale within the  pieces seem to be in constant oscillation, mirroring the complex timelines and scale bridging patterns within the natural world. The highly detailed but expansive images of  natural scenes or magical landscapes create a feeling of complete immersion but at a great    distance. He captures one moment, often silent and peaceful but with a twinkle of mischief,  that seems to stretch out into an infinite space that spans the historical gap between us  now and a much older, more mysterious land.