January – May 2021

Over the last few months I have been considering an alternative direction for my work. My thoughts centred around the branches and twigs of trees, with the spaces in between. So I started with a few small sketches….

I produced a few paintings over the next few weeks, all oil on paper, around 22 x 33cm – Catkins on Blue, Oak Branches Abstract, Branches on Sunset Sky, Scots Pine Abstract, Cherry Blossoms on Blue.

The Scots Pine Abstract is to be shown in this year’s Broadway Arts Festival open art competition, 4th – 13th June. I’d like to do some more work with a similar look of coloured abstract from a variety of subjects – so will see how that idea pans out.

Alongside the Branches series I painted a piece for In Pursuit of Spring – an exhibition based on the poet Edward Thomas’s cycle ride from London to Somerset in 1913. The Black Swan Art Centre is hosting the exhibition along with Somerset Art Works.

Stone Packsaddle Bridge, Tellisford, acrylic on board

For two weeks in May I am on a self-funded Artist’s Residency at a friend’s house near Constantine, Cornwall. The land is in the process of being cleared of brambles and 40 – 50 year old self seeded trees, mainly ash & sycamore. Two yurts are to be erected shortly so much work from plumbing to chain-sawing! There is a lot of interest from a 1950’s cow-byre full of junk, log-piles, wind blown oaks covered in lichen, and unfurling ancient ferns.