Inspiration and Meaning Behind the Painting
I always return to the forest as a subject for painting. It is a source of limitless fascination and inspiration for artists and photographers. I create these forest paintings primarily from memory. I do have photographs that I have taken at different locations, but I rarely use them to complete a painting. They may offer a starting point, a way of seeing or a particular quality of light, but ultimately a painting has to work on its terms; effective paintings have a convincing internal character or consistency. I find that I can only achieve this by moving beyond the straitjacket of the camera lens and encouraging the natural rhythms of hand and eye to echo the cycles of growth and renewal. I guess it has something to do with a sense of flow and movement at the heart of the Forest.
If you have visited this blog before you will have seen many of my Forest paintings, the culmination of a two-week residency in the New Forest, a simply wonderful creative opportunity. You can read more about my experience here on the Little Van Gogh Residency – Little Van Gogh.
Who owns England? Painting a Stolen View
A little closer to home, I recently visited Thetford Forest to explore the woods and gather ideas for new work. I had been walking, enjoying the landscape and taking a few photographs when I was confronted by a 'ranger' who abruptly told me I was on private land and had to leave immediately. There were no signs, no warnings, barriers or fences, I had simply walked from a designated parking area into the Forest for roughly 200 metres and was accused of trespassing. To be honest I was taken aback, and genuinely shocked, and this individual felt no obligation to explain why I should not be there. It was a simple statement of fact; I was on private land, not yet a fully criminal offence but that's exactly how it felt. I returned home and did a little research. It turns out that half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population. But don't just take my word for it.
Guy Shrubsole, author of the book 'Who Owns England?' in which the figures are revealed, argues that the findings show a picture that has not changed for centuries. Most people remain unaware of quite how much land is owned by so few,” he writes, adding: “A few thousand dukes, baronets and country squires own far more land than all of middle England put together.”
“Land ownership in England is astonishingly unequal, heavily concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite.” Source: The Guardian, April 2019
So there we have it, you can explore relatively small areas of land designated for the public or you can enjoy a view from a distance, but you can't walk through or physically interact with huge swathes of the British Countryside. It's a strange thought that the very earth under our feet generally belongs to someone else and our relationship with it is constrained by the laws of ownership. A person’s land includes any trees, shrubs, hedges, plants and flowers, whether planted by the owner(s) themselves or having grown wild on the land. Taking the concept of ownership to its limits, I guess you could say this is a stolen view.
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