2025

A look around the studio April 2025

Tree Studies, landscape & one figure

Having begun to look more closely at the skeletons of leaves, as they are exposed by the elements and trodden on by passers-by, I have shifted focus to the parents – trees – a lifelong interest and solace. So, I am trying to find visual equivalents for the architecture of trees, their presence and liveliness, the way they move and dance while being tethered and rooted. The play of light on branches, twigs and leaves, and the forces of wind and rain that push and pull at them. They all have different characters and relate to each other in many varied ways. The drawings and paintings are an attempt to translate my experiences of tree beings into marks on paper. Inevitably they are always incomplete, always evocative shadows of the presence of the trees themselves. I have also embarked on a series titled, Earthsigns, evoking a sense of the layered histories to be found in the ground beneath our feet. Bringing together images of bones, rocks and plants with tracks and traces of humans and animals moving within a landscape. Somewhat reminiscent of archaeological digs…. mortality, birth and death … comings and goings … the myth of permanence within a universe of impermanence and change …

Scorhill Hawthorn text: On the grey moor years go by – branches fall, winds blow, rains come & go & all that passes leaves a mark

Black-a-Tor Oak text: On a still day it stands there with its jewelled leaves glowing – a miracle of umber & dark tracery of boughs & twigs

Walking Berard Valley text: Light on leaf, stone, dancing water – always fleeting & flickering. Larch, spruce & lolling heads of rowan blossom.

Sitting quietly Doing nothing text: Sitting quietly, doing nothing but being alive to it all. Is this what God is – the beauty and mystery of truly being here?

Notebook studies

Studio shots – October 2025