Art / Jethro Marshall
Jethro Marshall’s west country typologies exhibited at SERCHIA
Describing himself as “anti-bucolic/pro-rural”, Jethro Marshall is an image maker and creative director who has been photographing the West Country for the last four years.
Reframing rural life away from ‘the pastoral’, he is drawn instead to the utilitarian; the often overlooked architecture of community, tourism, agriculture, and faith that underpins much of the region’s villages.
As the creator of eight photobooks under the publishing imprint West Country Modern, he has distributed his work in galleries, book fairs and shops in the UK, Europe and Japan.
St Saviours Dottery West Dorset, 2022
Round roof barn with multiple extentions, Marshwood, 2019
Colyford East Devon, 2020
Presented without judgement, Marshall’s series’ of black and white typologies depict agricultural barn buildings, bungalows, prefabricated homes, village halls and churches, ever-more squeezed and adapted by market forces and the demands of modern life.
With echoes of Hilla and Bernd Becher, he chooses to focus not on fading industrial structures but on the modest, more invisible furniture of our everyday landscape. Not always at the centre of rural life, and increasingly peripheral to some, they are nevertheless ubiquitous, and in their own way, beautiful.
Hay barn with machinery store catslide, Wooton Fitzpaine
Church Of Latter Day Saints Poole, 2022
Ashill Village Hall, 2019
Opening at SERCHIA on January 19, his work will be shown in a gallery context for the first time, in the exhibition BEAUTILITY.
In their notes to the collection, SERCHIA describe the images as “one part architectural , one part sociological, but mainly the presentation of an enthusiasts collection – the aim of sharing the beauty of the under documented, the restrained and the municipal. Curated, printed, mounted, framed and hung in Bristol.”
Freshwater Holiday Park, Burton Bradstock, 2022
Chardstock, East Devon, 2020
Bettiscombe Village Hall, 2019
Jethro Marshall: BEAUTILITY is at SERCHIA Gallery from January 19-February 23, Monday-Friday 10am-5pm (free, by appointment).
For more information about the exhibition, the gallery and all the featured artists, visit www.serchiagallery.square.site or follow @serchiagallery. Follow Jethro Marshall @westcountrymodern.
All photos: Jethro Marshall (main photo: Beer Head Caravan Park 2021)
Read more: Serchia Gallery hosts solstice-inspired exhibition from Chinese-British artist Dori Deng
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