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'Spring Equinox'
Windsor Great Park

'The Oaktops Entangle' Tycanol Wood

'Axis Mundi'
Ankerwycke Yew

Ankerwycke Yew
and Priory

'Dragon in the Wood'
 Yew Tree Langley Park

'Sun Going Down'
Ankerwycke Yew

'Witness Through Two Millennia'
Ankerwycke Yew

'Severn Footpath
 and
Willows'

Some places seem to have or promote a strong spiritual atmosphere and people have always sensed a magical influence from trees.  I have been making paintings and drawings of trees and landscape all my life and recently felt a special resonance with a small woodland called Tycanol, close to the west coast of Wales. Also with Windsor Great Park and the ancient Ankerwycke Yew nearby.

With the Tycanol Wood paintings I have made, the rhythmic forms of the old and stunted oaks are, in part, shaped by the wind blowing off the sea.  The title of one of these pictures makes note of this and the title of another, 'The Oaktops Entangle' came from a line from a poem by Robert Graves called 'Battle of the Trees'.  The air quality in Tycanol Wood is also very clean and makes it possible for many varieties of lichen and moss to grow on trees and rocks alike -  A great delight for me and factor which was an aid in the unifying of the colours and textures of these paintings.

I found the remarkable Ankerwycke Yew from reading of the researches of Allen Meredith and by chance met him there on my first visit to make drawings in 1993.  Since then, I have returned again and again, to make new drawings and paintings of the tree and its' environment.  Similarly, Windsor Great Park has been close enough to home and therefore provided me with the opportunity to make many return visits and at all seasons.  The painting of oaks, illustrated here, was begun in the depths of winter (snow all around) and was completed around the Spring Equinox when there was the the first hint of new leaves emerging.

With all this subject matter, full of energy, rhythms, patterns, textures and colours, together with the possibility of learning more of the nature of trees. the historical accounts and myths, there has been much source of inspiration for my work.

For further information and prices, please contact the artist at a.bennett@waitrose.com