The Promise of Gardens
An exploration of gardens as spaces brought to life through human intention and optimism.
Gardens.
Places where human intention and the natural world can interexist.
I’ve always been drawn to gardens. I watched and read The Secret Garden repeatedly as a child (and, confession, as an adult!). I even walked down the aisle to music from the 1993 soundtrack.
To me they are spaces filled with optimism and a belief that the future is worth investing in. Bulbs are planted in October, trusting that they will bring joy as the days lengthen. The smallest of seeds unfurl into waves and clusters of flowers, offering joy to human and wild life, side by side.
Gardens nurture a deep regard and affection for nature, offering us space to ground ourselves and to magnify our senses. We can fill our vision with an abundance of tone and colour, fragmented, dancing light sends shivers up our spine, wind rustles through leaves, muffling noisy thoughts. Pollen and grass and water immerse us in our surroundings.
This series of studies is an exploration and preparation as my gratitude for gardens and what they give us grows.
Available to view at:
This collection of studies is an exploration of the optimism inherent in making something beautiful for a future we can’t see.
I hope to build on them with bigger, braver and bolder works, allowing the collection to grow slowly and organically, with intention. Spending time in gardens has become a source of grounding for me; a reminder to let roots slowly anchor me, trust the process and allow things to develop in their own time.
I perceive these paintings as seeds. From them, I hope something larger will grow: a collection that blooms, branches out and perhaps becomes a little unpredictable and wild along the way, just as a garden does. I’m excited to grow a body of work that I hope contributes to the same feelings of joy, peace and grounding as gardens themselves do.
A painterly celebration of the way our senses experience the magic of gardens.
I’m delighted to share an early collection of exploratory studies in response to an evolving recognition of what grounds me.
