Elen Delafouge Jones

MA Illustration and Book Arts

Tokyo based artist Elen Delafouge Jones has been exploring the concept of process over outcome in her work for several years. With a Bachelor's degree in embroidery, stitch and pattern continue to play a role in her making. However, working in education since 2006 has been pivotal in her current investigations. Realising the value and importance of the journey her students follow when working through ideas, and witnessing the learning that occurs in this process, has initiated a need to analyse her own creative process.

Elen’s Master's project has thematically grown from her interest in nature and her experience of working at the Cambridge University Zoology Museum. The key concept here, however, was to develop a sustainable method of working creatively alongside other life commitments regardless of subject matter. This focus provided space for a multitude of explorations in various media.

The work you see here are explorations not end products. They have evolved from play, curiosity and intuition which have grown from an initial prescriptive and orderly research. The initial stage of the work involves searching for visual inspiration in others’ work and drawing the subject matter, in this case, the cherry blossom tree. All explorations have then developed from this. Intriguingly, this very rigid initial approach has provided vast possibilities and starting points. Looking through these explorations, one will see recurring conceptual themes. Pattern, iterations, repetition, complexity, deconstruction, reconstruction, arrangement, and order. These highlight a certain possible style in Elen’s work. However, they are all transferrable, they are not bound to subject matter nor medium. These recurring conceptual themes will hopefully provide the sustainable creative process Elen was hoping to discover through her master’s project investigation.