An artist’s reflection on how rhythm, interval, and attention connect ambient music and forest painting—translating sound into structure, colour, and space

A close-up look at “Forest Ensemble,” where pale birch trunks and layered blues create a calm, rhythmic woodland atmosphere.

Poet and academic Dr David Kelly spent time with the forest paintings and wrote in direct response. What follows arrived unedited, in a single sitting. The visual spacing is the poet's own — the intervals between lines echoing the intervals between trees. What would the forest cry If a forest could cry out in a way that would make you know it were crying? It would, I expect, cry out "I am forest" In the thick dialect of foliage The rich lexicon of leaf mould Under the tongue

There is a paradox at the heart of painting that I have never been able to resolve; in fact, I believe it cannot be resolved, only experienced. Every painting I make is, in a way, a negotiation with a ghost: the ghost of the Renaissance window. The Window We Cannot Close In 1435, Leon Battista Alberti described the picture plane as a 'finestra aperta' — an open window through which the viewer looks into a constructed world. Although this was initially a metaphor, it evolved i

The palette knife is the primary tool of my practice — not a secondary instrument for mixing paint, but the principal means by which paint is applied, moved, and shaped on the canvas. Working with a knife rather than a brush introduces a particular set of constraints and possibilities that are central to the character of the work. Constraint as Productive Force The knife cannot do everything that a brush can do. It cannot produce the fine, controlled lines of a sable brush; i

This post sets out the material composition of the cold wax medium I use — the beeswax, damar resin, and solvent — and describes how these elements behave during and after painting. It is intended as a reference for those who want to understand the physical basis of the work.

The transformative power of oil & Cold Wax medium

Peter Corr providing a guide to a joint exhibition of artwork with his daughter Louisa Corr at The Old Fire Engine House in Ely

The textural qualities of cold wax encourage extensive mark-making and the exploration of surface irregularities. Beeswax, as a natural material, inherently reflects elements of nature and the processes of change and transformation.

In April 2025 I showed a new group of paintings at Fresh Art Fair, Cheltenham Racecourse. The works were part of my continuing forest series — each one an attempt to hold the particular quality of light and structure that draws me back to woodland as a subject.

In November 2024 I showed a new body of work at Manchester Central, exhibited through the Darryl Nantais Gallery at Linton 59. The paintings continued my ongoing engagement with woodland and forest — large-scale works in oil and cold wax that explore structure, light, and the threshold quality of the natural world.

In October 2024 I gave a presentation and live painting demonstration to the Isle of Ely Art Society. The event was held at the Methodist Church, Chapel Street, Ely, and focused on my working process with oil and cold wax medium. 'The First Temple' 130 x 100 x 4 cm on canvas The Demonstration The session centred on the layered approach that characterises my practice — the use of brayers, palette knives, and unconventional tools to build up and rework the painted surface. Cold

The Cheltenham Fresh Art Fair brought together a broad range of contemporary painters, with several artists demonstrating their practice live. This post reflects on the exhibitors and the work on show — a useful record of where contemporary British painting currently stands.

Gold enamel and cold wax medium

The question of detail in painting is not technical — it is philosophical. This post reflects on how I approach the relationship between precision and openness in my work, using a painting of Eaves Wood in Lancashire as a starting point for thinking about what detail is actually for.

Using cold wax medium with oil paint to create a forest

The question I am asked most often is how oil paint and cold wax work together. This post draws on my current studio practice to describe the relationship between the two materials — how they interact, how I mix and apply them, and what the medium makes possible that oil alone does not.

This large-scale painting was developed over an extended period in the studio, its surface built up through successive layers of oil and cold wax medium. The title refers both to the colour — a deep, saturated green that dominates the composition — and to the sense of enclosure that the vertical forms of the trees create: a vault of branches and foliage that shelters and contains. Surface and Process The work was made using a variety of tools — palette knives, rollers, and pr

This is the work currently in the studio. I have decided to produce a series of paintings based on the VolksPark in Berlin

I returned to the Edinburgh Art Fair in November 2023, showing a selection of forest paintings with Linton 59. Edinburgh is always a serious context for contemporary work — the audience is engaged and the standard of exhibiting galleries is high.

Artists are often asked this question — it is typically the first and frequently the last. The conventional answer is that the hours spent directly on the painting might add up to a few days, weeks, or perhaps a month or two. The artist would then wisely note that, in reality, the piece in question represents the accumulated knowledge and experience of a lifetime. Both answers are true, and neither is complete. Painting of a Forest by Peter Corr 'The Lie of The Land' The Infl

For over fifty years I have been painting — in different countries, across different phases of life, and through a succession of approaches that have each left their mark on the work I make now. Looking back across that span of time, what strikes me most is not the continuity of style but the continuity of preoccupation: a persistent interest in landscape, in the qualities of light and surface, and in the tension between what is seen and what is felt. Celebrating Nature's Ele

In June and July 2023 I held a solo exhibition of paintings in Linton, Cambridgeshire. The show brought together a selection of recent work in oil and cold wax, spanning a range of scales and exploring the recurring themes of my practice: the forest, the fenland, the quality of northern light, and the tension between representation and abstraction. The Work The paintings in this exhibition were developed through the layered process that characterises my approach to oil and co

In May 2023 I gave a presentation at the Royal Photographic Society Contemporary SIG conference, held over a weekend at Foxton, Cambridgeshire. The theme of the event centred on the vulnerability of the Fenland area — its exposure to rising sea levels, the pressures on its flood infrastructure, and the broader implications of climate change for a landscape that sits, in large part, below sea level. Fens Photography by Peter Corr A Landscape Below Sea Level With a third of the