Artwork for Richard Gilbert
December Herefordshire Beacon
British Camp from Black Hill
Ghost Tree V
Ghost Tree II
The White Barn
Little Ghosts
Ghost (Croft)
The Whiteleaf Oak
Details
My response to a landscape though the practice of making repeated drawings and studies evolving into painting develops slowly over months and sometimes years, even in a single work. Inspired by Pissarro's depictions of orchards at Eragny-sur-Epte, I have painted the orchards at Breinton Springs owned by the National Trust and Hereford Cider Museum in order to make a film that can be viewed athttps://applesandpeople.org.uk/pissarro/. In 2020-21 I made a calendar cycle of large works based on Stonewall Hill, that lies on the border of England and Wales in response to an epic drawing of the same hill by Mary Rennell in 1967-68. Ongoing projects are 'Trees on the March' about ancient trees in Herefordshire; 'Ghost Trees'; 'In Search of the Perfect Hill'; 'Paths and Tracks' and 'The Hogsback Hills'.
I am not necessarily trying to seek new landscapes but find new ways to see landscape. My ambition is to make an image of a landscape that the eye can get lost in.
Whilst I might call myself a landscape-based artist, I am really attempting to make 'portraits' of the landscape. I develop bodies of work based on specific locations or places that I have grown to know, engaging with approaches involving time and the seasons that might also taking account of context such as how artists and writers have engaged with landscape. I relish having diverse perspectives on the landscape of the Marches. The depiction of trees are hills are two particular subjects that have have proved fascinating on a variety of levels.
My practice is based around painting and drawing that from time to time is supplemented by teaching, workshops or community engagement activities such as the Big Draw, for example, creating a large-scale countywide drawing 'A Journey through Herefordshire' at Hereford Museum and Art Gallery in October 2019.
Following undergraduate study at Falmouth and Wimbledon Art Schools, I studied for an MA at Chelsea School of Art and an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I have had exhibitions in Hereford, the Midlands and London and contributed towards group shows in the UK and Europe. I have work in public and private collections here and abroad.
'Common Ground' - A journey into Herefordshire. Hereford Museum and Art Gallery, September 2019
'Round the Year from Stonewall Hill: A Journey in Time and Space'. Hereford Museum and Art Gallery, August 2021
'Inspired by Pissarro, painting the orchards at Breinton Springs' online film viewed at https://applesandpeople.org.uk/pissarro/
'The Sacred and the Tree' a group show with the Arborealists at Norwich Cathedral Hostry, May 2022
'Six artists in search of a perfect hill', Ludlow Assembly Rooms, July/August 2022
'The Tree of Life' with the Arborealists, Knighton Festival 2022
'Paradise Regained' Thelma Hubert Gallery, Honiton 2023
'Paths and Tracks' SpringCheltenham 2023
Studio
