My work takes its inspiration from the natural world and in particular from the fields, woods and hedges near my home.
I paint in egg tempera, mixing the colours and applying them in many layers and glazes intermixed with intense passages of detailed pencil drawing, watercolour and pen and ink. It is a very personal technique – what I depict in my paintings is inextricably entwined with how it is depicted.
My work always evolves from loose, abstract beginnings in which I have no pre-conceived idea or composition, allowing myself to be guided by the resulting marks and images which begin to emerge. This is my ‘way in’ to a landscape, where process, materials and subject matter are all emergent and equally dependent on each other, rooted in impression rather than emulation. It is how I tap into a deep-rooted and deep-seated feeling for the landscape which is not only my own but comes from the generations of my family who have farmed and worked on the land.
In this way my paintings inevitably evolve very gradually. They usually combine periods spent working outdoors, sometimes for many months, even years, with equally long periods spent in my studio working from memory and imagination. The gradual emergence of an idea through layers of drawing is very important to the way I work and at some level reflects the pace at which nature, both past and present, unfolds. In that sense one might say I am a Romantic in that I find personal expression through the complexities and minutiae of nature with my central aim always to find the hidden pervading spirit of a place.
I am acutely aware of the changing nature of the land as it faces such immense pressures from urbanization and global climate change. But equally I am aware, and always in search of, its unchanging and persistent qualities.
Education
1987-90 University of Oxford, Ruskin School of drawing, BA Fine Arts
1990-92 Royal College of Art, MA Printmaking
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2021 ‘The Wood I Know’, Portland Gallery, London
2018 ‘Springlines’, St. Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Hampshire
2017 'Palimpsest', Portland Gallery, London
2015 'Springlines', Glyndebourne Opera House
2014 'Place and Memory'', Portland Gallery, London
2012 'Michaelmas Journey', Portland Gallery, London
2009 'Thinking Places', Portland Gallery, London
2006 'Stargazing', The London Art Fair and Portland Gallery, London
2003 'Everyman's Journey', Portland Gallery, London
2001 'Art 2001', The London Contemporary Art Fair with Portland Gallery, London
2000 'Earth mountain Rivers', Portland Gallery, London
1998 'Visions of a Legend', Portland Gallery, London
1997 'Recent Paintings', Portland Gallery, London
Selected Group Exhibitions
2022 'Trees and the Sacred' The Arborealists, The Hostry, Norwich Cathedral
2021 ‘Being With Trees’, Gustavo Bacarisus Gallery, Gibraltar
2019 ‘Romantics’, Romantic Art in the 21st century St.Barbe Art Gallery, Hampshire
2018 ‘Masterpiece’, London with Portland Gallery
2017 Capture the Castle – British Artists and the Castle from Turner to Le Brun, Southampton City art Gallery with accompanying publication
2016 Contemporary Painting - The Arborealists, St. Barbe Art Gallery, Lymington with accompanying catalogue
2016 The Thread of Romanticism in British Art, Southampton City Art Gallery with accompanying catalogue
2015 The Arborealists, Mottisfont Abbey
2014 Lyn Painter Stainers Exhibition, London
2014 The Arborealists, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2012 Sunday Times Watercolour Competion, London
2009 Lyn Painter Stainers Exhibition, London
1996/2000/2001/2007 BP Portrait Award, London
Hunting Art Prize
1999 Discerning Eye Art Prize, London
Scholarships and Awards include
2006 Official tour artist for HRH Prince of Wales for his visit to Nigeria and Sierra Leone
2001 Official tour artist for HRH Prince of Wales for his visit to Canada
2001 Official tour artist for HRH Prince of Wales for his visit to Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Jamaica
1999 The Discerning Eye ABN AMRO Award, First Prize
1994/1996 Scholarship to the Frans Masereel International Print Making Centre, Belgium
1992-1993 Erna Plachte Fine Art Fellowship, Ruskin School of Drawing, University of Oxford
1991 Scholarship to Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris