Painting the Land – Helen Melland, Anna Donovan and Kate Carnell

January 21-March 7

Painting the Land – Helen Melland, Anna Donovan and Kate Carnell

Through their explorations in paint, the three artists in this exhibition at Greenhill Arts, Moretonhampstead, express different aspects of the landscape.

Helen Melland reflects an interest in multiple dimensions; the flat space contrasts with often intricate layering of varied paint textures, mirroring her fascination with archetype and myth, alongside the chaos and clarity of dreams. The collision of unknown realms that merge is a recurrent theme.

She said: ‘My paintings usually start with a simple idea - a visual note around which everything else then builds. I am hugely influenced by the natural world, but also by a feeling for other, unseen worlds and the thin veils between them.’

Anna Donovan explores the shifting boundaries between the wilder, open expanses of moorland and more cultivated garden spaces. She explained: ‘Here the bleak and sometimes forbidding seem to be inextricably interwoven with the gloriously beautiful. The grandeur of a landscape haunted by the struggle for survival vies for attention with the seemingly safe and almost secretive world of the garden.’

Kate Carnell’s recent work draws from an emotional response to nature and place and the desire to understand what lies beneath. Her paintings are immersive with a feeling of being submerged deep within the landscape.

‘By moving colour around on the canvas and layering paint I endeavour to reveal depths within the paintings that allude to the hidden structures in nature at a microscopic level, thus making these intangible worlds tangible,’ she said.

Entry to the exhibition is free. The Green Hill Arts Gallery is open from 10am-4pm weekly from Tuesday to Saturday inclusive (closed on Sundays and Mondays). The Gallery is situated at the top of Fore Street, Moretonhampstead, close to the parish church. Parking is in the Court Street and Station Road car parks.