1970s Science Fiction Meets Archaeology

Mountjoy was employed as a teacher of art in a Cheltenham comprehensive school in 1972. Throughout the 1970s he continued to make ceramics and paint; experimenting with inks over emulsion, acrylic and collage. He was reading science fiction and exploring the marks left on the Cotswold landscape by Neolithic settlers. Painting titles from the period, such at ‘Lith-Time’, ‘Monument’ and ‘Time-Travelled’ indicate the unconscious if not admitted influence of these interests. During this post college settling, he was attempting to rationalise those responses brought about by his readings and investigations. His then style drew from both the American and European abstract traditions. Working the ‘canvas’ from all sides, paintings were rotated, sometimes cut up and reassembled, allowing for radical modifications based on critical re-evaluations. “I had a day job that was challenging and inspiring but also the freedom to do what ever I liked with my painting. I experimented and took risks … some of the results survive”.

During this time he achieved an Arts Council Award for Painting, was exhibited with the Cheltenham Group of Artists and the Royal West of England Academy.

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