What I print and why

Although I’ve often fought art having to have a meaning, we create for a reason. My work embodies two streams, both interconnected. The first being landscapes and nature in which I lose myself, quite literally forgetting about meaning and living in the beauty of the moment.

The second stream is an emotional response to the threat nature faces from climate change and government policy.

These come together in my printmaking, combining layers with  colour and mark making. I particularly find myself drawn (and drawing) trees. As a child I carried the Dawling Kinsley book of trees around everywhere, I was fascinated to the point of obsessed. As an adult, I carry a sketchbook and camera around capturing trees everywhere, still fascinated and still obsessed.

It’s perhaps the ability of trees to stand solid, adapt to change and yet retain their beauty, whatever is thrown at them, that fascinates me. They are dependable, yet adaptable. What humans seem to aspire to yet often fail at.

Each one has its own character like us, yet their needs are so much simpler. And somehow we connect with them. From the cool shade a woodland offers in the summer heat, to familiar figures that become a comfort in our immediate landscape, be it a garden, street or somewhere we spend time.

When a tree dies, or is cut down, I notice the hole in that landscape. Often it is subconscious to begin with but I come to realise what’s different. I am saddened, mourning the tree and the comfort it brought me through familiarity. Sycamore Gap, the Darwin Oak, the oak at Enfield common, are all examples of an angered and saddened response felt collectively.

The anger I feel in response to reducing protections for trees and nature has become a key influence in my art and is driving me further to capture their beauty. Before it’s too late. To give them (and our connection to them) a voice. To find landscapes where there is minimal human disturbance and where I can lose myself in the moment to escape the everyday and the emotions stirred by the threats to nature.