The transformative power of oil & Cold Wax medium

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.

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

A landscape painting of Thetford Forest in oil and cold wax medium

Borderlands. An abstract Landscape painting by Peter Corr. See his work at the Battersea Affordable Art Fair 21 - 24 October 21

Red embodies an emotional power like no other colour and the associations for each individual are almost limitless. The materials used in th

This multi-layered mixed media oil painting represents a development of my New Forest series and continues my engagement with nature and land. The surface consists of multiple layers of oil and cold wax, with a marked impasto and strong textural qualities. The gold enamel has a soft patina and mirrors elements of the colour and tone of the immediate environment. Gold has been applied selectively to some of the vertical forms, providing intense points of reflective light again

I have arrived at an interpretation of the Fenlands through working with materials and actually living here and experiencing the...

A landscape painting of the Cambridgeshire Fenlands by the artist Peter Corr

Surface texture is one of the most distinctive qualities of my landscape paintings — a quality that is both visual and physical, and that is central to the way the work is experienced. The texture is not applied as a decorative element; it is the result of the painting process itself, the accumulated evidence of the decisions and revisions that went into making the work. Building the Surface The surface of a painting in oil and cold wax is built up through successive layers o

The life of a painter is, in large part, a sustained engagement with failure. Not failure in the sense of defeat, but failure in the sense of falling short of what one intended — of making something that is less than what one hoped for, and then returning to the studio to try again. This is not a discouraging observation; it is, I think, the condition that makes the work possible. If painting were easy, it would not be worth doing. The Aesthetic Journey The aesthetic journey