The Intimate Landscape

Ian Mowforth is a seasoned artist who has taught art in schools for many years. In his paintings he has developed his interest in the many ways paint can be manipulated, recreating the essence of what he sees. Always drawn to the real world for inspiration, Ian has experimented with many motifs: animals, still life, portraiture, and landscapes.

Ian has built a body of work, painting the garden at Great Dixter near Rye. He says;

"The garden itself looks like a painting, and it was very easy to become seduced by the luxurious planting schemes. My paintings of Great Dixter, record its changing seasons. I love playing with size and scale and the intimacy of this wonderful space. "

Ian has worked to emulate and capture the spirit of this Eden in terms of colour, texture and gestural mark making. He works rapidly in the studio revealing to us the sense of the plants growing and moving against each other.

The Autumn colours and wilder landscape of Wimbledon Common have been a further attraction; becoming increasingly interested in the changing seasons, their differences in colour and light. He has begun to paint a pond on the common paying close attention to the variations of reflections within it, using photography as an aide memoir.

More recently, Ian has returned to an area of Yorkshire where he painted as a teenager. The setting has evolved over the years, the avenues of trees and the vistas that appealed to him in his youth have begun to call again. Ian has started to paint these familiar scenes with more experienced eyes, relishing the rigours involved in newly capturing the feel of the land, the challenge it brings, and how it is revitalising his ideas and energy.