William Parkinson Living Laboratory & The Thousand Year Trust…Support our temperate rain forests.
This June I was approached by the wonderful family of William Parkinson. William truly loved the areas of temperate rain forest that remain on Dartmoor in the south west of England.
These special pockets of woodland have also been of special interest to me and have informed the first series of paintings that I embarked on when I made the conscious decision to dedicate myself to painting trees.
This decision came out of what had been a fallow period in my artistic career. Looking back over my own portfolio, showed me how much trees inspired me and permeated my creative imagination.
In the summer of 2014 a friend introduced me to the trees of Dartmoor. We went for an eight mile hike across the moor and found enough wonderful inspiration to keep me busy for the next four years - actually it is inexhaustible - I could still be making work based on those hours of walking.
One of the paintings that is derived from that first exploratory visit to the moors, has a title that the painting itself suggestd to me.
The title is Hidden (Green Man) and it came about some time after I had completed the painting. It was one of those works that had a slow evolution, falling roughly into three phases of painting.
The first phase was the energetic laying down of the first marks, drawing out the trees and the rocks. I had begun laying down the background colour too and was really pleased with the vibrancy of it all.
However, when I returned to it in the morning I realised that one corner of the image was glaringly phallic - not what I had intended. I set about adjusting the image and filed that aspect of it away as just a funny anecdote in the paintings’ evolution.
During the process of painting I often take photographs of my days’ work so that I can review it away from the studio, in preparation for the next days’ work.
Many months after completing the painting, it was still titled Dartmoor lll. Relaxing at home one evening, I’d left my iPad propped up on the coffee table - images from the photos app rotating through my paintings album.
One of the images I had saved was of this painting. As my gaze fell on it I noticed for the first time that a face, distinctly like the images of the mythical Green Man, was gazing back at me from the painted foliage. I remember what an extraordinary moment that was, it was such a surprise to see him there!
This was one of many experiences that have revealed to me a ‘magical’’ aspect of creative endeavour. I am always in awe of that whenever it occurs.
My limited knowledge of the Green Man was that he was a symbol of fertility. Remembering the paintings’ first stages, I had to acknowledge to myself that the paintings do indeed seem to develop a life of their own. I’ve since learned that the Green Man symbolises the eternal cycle of life, death and regeneration.
It seems to me now to be fitting that Hidden (Green Man) has found its way to an auction being held in support of those very themes.
If you would like to support this wonderful project please visit https://app.galabid.com/wplivinglaboratory/items
An archive clip from Bermondsey Project Space
In February 2021 at the wonderful but sadly no longer open Bermondsey Project Space, The Arborealists and Urban Contemporaries staged an exhibition of work that focussed on urban trees.
The following caption is an introduction by Bermondsey Project Space to a short video clip where I am speaking about my approach to selecting and responding to my chosen subjects: ‘Here artist Jaqueline Wedlake-Hatton speaks about the wildness of trees. Part of ‘Being with Trees‘, a collaborative exhibition of work by The Arborealists, The Urban Contemporaries and invited artists, bringing together a contemporary response to trees in urban and rural environments.’
Learn more about the fate of the gallery from its artistic director Mike von Joel.
Water Drawings
'Oak, Air And Water' August 2023, Ink, River Water, Pencil, Carbon
W33 x H25cm
Increasingly I find inspiration in scientists’ explorations of the natural world.
In particular I have taken an interest in the work of Monica Gagliano and am inspired by her interest in the ideas, ancient traditions and knowledge of the indigenous rainforest peoples.
In 2017, when visiting Lady Park Wood with ecologist George Peterkin and The Arborealists, I spent about an hour or so just walking about and sitting in the wood, seeking a sense of it that was beyond the visual. I resisted the temptation to begin sketching or even taking photographs and allowed myself the time to perceive with all of my senses. What I felt more than anything was that I was surrounded by water - not only the water flowing beneath the wood in the River Wye but also the water that moved and flowed, however slowly in the forms of the trees.
This impression of water in movement is reflected in the lines of the trees; in their patterns of growth, in the shapes formed in their trunks, limbs and bark; the lines flow like water.
Since then I have begun to pay more attention to thoughts about water that quite literally pour themselves in to my mind. I take time to listen to the ‘song’ of the water before beginning work.
My process for making these ‘water drawings’ is derived from my desire to give space to those afore mentioned impressions. In doing so I have let go of the conventional pictorial space, instead I allow the shape of the drawing to be dictated by the water. I then look for correlations in the scene before me and incorporate them into the drawing, it is an intuitive and interpretative process.