Solway Firth 1 Painting

Explore nature's landscapes offers a lifetime of discovery. Remembering the ground is archaic and has a language all it's own. Against that permanence, an ever changing wind, light & seasonal variations construct different grammars. The delight of heathers interwoven with other flora allows spiritual colours of mauves and purples. Painting is about looking and 'seeing' intently. We all see a subject differently. I hope my work challenges the viewers notion of landscape. I grew up on a mixed farm. This allowed me the access and freedom to explore nature in all its glory. The landscape is changing radically with the effects of climate change and the advancements in farming practices together with urbanisation creep. The countryside is changing as we once knew it. ​ My interest as an artist lies in the effect man has on the land. In particular the way farmers and land workers inadvertently create barriers that resemble 'installations' to keep in their livestock ( or not as is the case most often). Various configurations of obscure objects such as rusting corrugated sheeting, wire meshing, the odd tree stump or an old oil drum, when creatively assembled provide a barrier and an interesting installation deserving of an artist's attention. Drystane dyking outlines and defines areas of land, there for us all to marvel. When in decline they tumbledown and become dishevelled providing that gap or extra doorway into the vista ahead. Framing the landscape in a natural way for the artist to depict. It has been my aim to catch those disappearing elements where souls scour a living from those wild and woolly outcrops from the Hebrides to the open vistas of Northumberland and beyond.