Dreaming Earth

Winner of the prestigious first prize in the 17th John Moores Liverpool exhibition, Jackowski is an artist of national importance. Of Polish extraction, he was born in North Wales and now lives in Brighton. Dreaming Earth combines two of the main themes of the Ferens Collecting Policy for post-war works - that of the sea and the human form. It is one of a group of large canvasses by the artist devoted to a mysterious female figure lying or standing in a waterside landscape. Perhaps the title, Dreaming Earth, suggests that the large female and faceless figure is the archetypal 'earth mother', a goddess of femininity and fertility. The atmosphere of the speckled sky, and the roughness of the fairground enclosure, convey the richness of the female presence in the sultry atmosphere and sparse landscape, which one critic likened to a never-never land. At the same time, the figure in its enclosure conveys personal isolation. Another critic has suggested that this refers to Jackowski's childhood in a refugee camp.