What’s On

An inspiring selection of work by members of the Gloucestershire Society for Botanical Illustration. Some exhibitors have won The Royal Horticultural Society’s Gold, Silver Gilt and Silver Medals both in the Grenfell (for art pictures) and Lindley (for scientific illustration) categories. GSBI was awarded the Finnis Scott Foundation Botanical Art Award in 2020.

A retrospective exhibition of work by David Burnham Smith who died in 2019. His instantly recognisable ceramics display humour, beauty and creativity. Trained as a draughtsman, David turned to ceramic restoration and then, later, applied that attention to detail to his own work inspired by history, nature, spirituality and the rich heritage of the ceramic world.

CLICK HERE for further information about David Burnham Smith.

In the summer of 2021, the Cotswold National Landscape launched the Glorious Cotswold Grasslands (GCG) Art Competition, calling for artworks from young artists. This exhibition displays the inspiring artworks submitted.
The GCG is an ambitious long term project aiming to restore the largest network of flower-rich Jurassic limestone habitat in the UK! Over the last three years the project has collected and sown wildflower seeds across the Cotswolds, resulting in the restoration of more than 200 hectares of limestone grassland – double its original target. Every hectare restored helps to reverse the decline of this unique and precious habitat, and helps wildlife thrive.
The display features the creative responses of young artists, aged 11-19, to the GCG project. The artworks are inspiring depictions of meadow scenes, wildflowers and climate-aware messaging, in a range of styles and media.
Alongside the display of artworks by the young artists there will be further events and activities to take part in. The winners of the competition will also be participating in an exciting and exclusive workshop for them, with model maker and character designer Jim Parkyn creating an amazing wildflower scene!
When visiting, why not also check on progress of the wildflowers sown in our own nature garden with the help of Harvey Sherwood, GCG Project Officer.

Come and meet people associated with the project and plant some wildflower seeds in our garden on Saturday April 9th.

In celebration of The Queen’s Green Canopy project, Regeneration is a new exhibition to help promote tree planting: a vital strand of the environmental crisis recovery strategy. Trees are the lungs of the planet and this exhibition showcases a diverse range of approach, style media, and scale – and interpretation of this uplifting and positive subject.

Trees provide a wonderfully versatile subject for artists, not only in terms of the rich variety of form, texture and colour they provide, whether individually or collectively, but also through the wealth of association – myth, folklore, religious and symbolic significance, that they have come to embody over many centuries. In Britain, trees as a subject have inspired artists from Gainsborough and Constable through to the Pre-Raphaelites, the Neo-Romantics and the Ruralists. Piet Mondrian and Victor Pasmore used the tree as a device to turn abstract and Paul Nash famously stated that he loved and worshipped trees and believed they were people.

The Arborealists were founded in 2013 by artist and curator Tim Craven following the seminal exhibition Under the Greenwood: Picturing the British Tree, staged at St Barbe Museum & Art Gallery, Lymington, in the heart of the New Forest. The Arborealists are a loose association of some 50 professional artists of diverse art practice who share the subject of the tree. Although united by their subject, the artists employ a diverse range of working practices: scale, medium, philosophy, style and technique. The results are by turn dramatic and contemplative, expressive, abstracted, hyperreal and surreal and they demonstrate that trees still have a deep relevance in contemporary art and retain their power to move us as a vital element in our landscape

The group is far flung with members from Wales and the borders to East Anglia and London and every southern county from Kent to Cornwall. The group enjoys a national profile and have already staged 26 exhibitions to critical acclaim in the UK, France and Gibraltar with many more planned for the future, including site-specific projects. The Arborealists have forged successful partnerships with National Park Authorities, Areas of Outstanding National Beauty and The Woodland Trust and The National Trust.

Image: ‘Amongst the Trees, Bluebell Wood, Perivale’ by David Wiseman, acrylic on canvas.

The always highly anticipated annual selling exhibition of The Wildlife  Art  Society International. Over 350 works by members in a wide variety of styles and media. The Society provides an active focus for wildlife artists, painters, sculptors and photographers whether they are professional, amateur or leisure artists. See artists at work every day.

Large paintings by Rosalind Wise in response to a visit to Transylvania in Romania where she says she ‘saw fields of many different flowers, carpets of shimmering colour disappearing into the distant landscape. This made me realise how much since the Second World War we in Britain have lost, and how important it is for us to preserve this living treasure’.