Epping Forest was saved for the city of London in the 19th century. Ancient rights of common helped to preserve this royal hunting forest. The forest has long links with the capital and has been shaped by human intervention over millenia. The pollard beeches which are many hundreds of years old were the focus of this collection of work. Their extraordinary gothic shapes and architectural forms inspire contemplation on resilience, rebirth and struggle. They are portraits.
sold
sold
oil on canvas 115x85cm framed
£850
Blue skies and no wind made this December day bright and uncompromising.
oil on canvas 115x85cm framed
Available for sale through:
artalexandermorgan.co.uk
A beautiful autumn day. Near High Beach.
sold
sold
oil on canvas 110x85 cm framed
£800
A day of freezing fog and hazy sunshine. The tree is glowing with epiphytes.
sold
oil on canvas 115 x 85 cm framed
£700
This was the first of my tree portraits. A hot day with the roar of Harleys in the background.
oil on canvas 115x85cm framed
£1100
Battle-scarred and belligerent.
oil on canvas 115 x 85 framed
£1250
Coppicing young beech saplings (cutting them right down to ground level) meant that they would regrow in multiple stems. One the practice ended the trees grew taller, in groups around a single root system. Then they were subjected to the technique of pollarding in which branches were lopped off at head height. In consequence in Epping Forest you find groups of Coppice Rings, ancient twisted forms standing together like groups of mourners.
Oil on canvas 115x165cm framed
£2750
This piece with the two that precede and follow it formed a triptych in my exhibition Epping Gothic which was at The Winns Gallery Walthamstow in September 2017 and The View in Epping Forest in 2018. It is a portrait of the fantastical forms of the ancient coppice rings (some of which may have origins that are 1000 years old) in a part of the forest called Dunsford Hollow. On this bright swept March day the twisted branches were dramatically lit.
oil on canvas 115x85cm framed
£1250
Another coppice remnant. Summer left suddenly in 2017.
oil on canvas 115x85cm framed
£800
The warm colours of the forest floor are deep and multi -textured. The architecture of the tree is elaborate high gothic tracery.
oil on canvas 115 x 85cm framed
£700
Forest portal.
Alongside the full-length tree portraits I painted a series of works reflecting the seasonal productivity of the forest: fruits, flowers and leaves. These are emblematic like the stone-carvings in medieval churches: symbols of nature's benevolence, of renewal and of the glorious variation in shape and form of living things.
oil on canvas 55x45cm framed
£600
Field maple and young oak leaves.
oil on canvas 55x45cm framed
£400
Field Maple is a native tree. You can apparently, tap it for syrup. Here is a late flash of sunshine in a modest stream near Upshire on the edge of the forest.
oil on canvas 55x45cm framed
currently available for sale at Obsidian art Gallery in Stoke Mandeville. obsidianart.co.uk
oil on canvas 55x45cm framed
£600
The beginning of August and suddenly there is a berry feast.
oil on canvas 55x45cm framed
£500
Looking West from one of the highest points in Epping Forest. Rather an overcast and heavy day.
sold
oil on canvas 55x45cm framed
£400
sold
Oil on board 90cm diameter unframed
Currently available for sale at Obsidian Art Gallery in Stoke Mandeville, obsidianart.co.uk
Oil on circular board 90cm diameter unframed
£1250
Not all of Epping Forest is dense woodland there are open clearings where cattle graze and smaller trees and shrubs form small clumps. Chingford Plain is Henry VIII's old deer park.
oil on board 90cm diameter unframed
£1250
These large tondos are ready to hang and make eye-catching focal points in a room.
A project in Shotover Park. The remains of ancient woodland on the edge of Oxford. Heathland and steep wooded hollows combine to create an area of great bio-diversity beloved of local naturalists and entomologists.
oil on canvas 55x85cm framed
£650
Hawthorn blossom is called May. It has a joyful exuberance. You must not take it indoors.
oil on canvas 55x85cm framed
£600
In the thicket. A tangle of dark limbs. A native tree.
sold
oil on canvas 55x85cm framed
£450
sold
sold
Oil on canvas 55x45cm framed
£375
Looking over the chilterns towards Didcot Power Station. Only two cooling towers remain now.
sold
sold
sold
sold
oil on canvas 56x46cm framed
£350
oil on canvas 56x46cm framed
£450
This beloved landmark has gone. It was over 400 years old.
oil on canvas 56x46cm framed
£300
oil on canvas 56x46cm framed
£300
oil on canvas 57x46cm framed
£300
A romantic piece. The moisture hangs heavy on an English summer day!
sold
oil on canvas 56x46cm framed
£300
oil on canvas 56x86cm framed
£550
oil on canvas 56x46cm framed
£300
Early Spring, light and air.
On The Verge was a collection of small paintings all preoccupied with looking down. Even where I live in North London, small wildernesses are everywhere, at the sides of roads alongside parks and gardens, in hedgerows. These paintings are a micro examination of the breathing shifting ground beneath and a celebration of the natural flora that keeps bursting through no matter what.
Painted in a piece of wasteland in Tottenham, North London. The bindweed was growing in profusion next to a side channel of the River Lee. There were a lot of discarded items round and about and while I was painting an airborne bicycle landed a few feet away followed by two shoes. Slightly spooked I was about to pack up when a young boy appeared, eastern european and with mud up to his knees. He was exploring on his bike and had waded over the the shallow river. I was charmed to see such an Enid Blyton like spirit of adventure in such an un-charming setting and I sent him off in the direction of the river path down towards Walthamstow Marshes. (I also lent him a cloth to wipe off all the mud!).
In the Woods was my first solo exhibition. Over a year I painted one painting a week. All were in Queen's Wood in Highgate, north London, a scrap of ancient woodland within a large capital city. Queen's Wood is an atmospheric place with steep hollows and old well-worn pathways.
57 x 47 cm Acrylic on board
Sold
Carnivalesque colours on this Autumn afternoon
A day when darker notes were just beginning to creep into Autumn brightness.
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30 x 30 cm acrylic on board
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Just looking up into the canopy on a summer's day.
Acrylic on board 46 x 45 cm
sold
Dancing into the hollow as the seasons change
Acrylic on board 46 x 45 cm
Sold
oil on board 60 x 60 cm
sold
Unseasonal snow that cloaked the woods overnight.
50 x 53 cm Acrylic on board
sold
A mature beech and the beginnings of Spring
50 x 28 cm acrylic on canvas
sold
Two walkers passed me by. "Its all just grey today" they said "nothing to paint."
50 x 52 cm oil on board
sold
This was painted in heavy April showers. The new beech leaves were a crazy green. This painting now lives in Beirut.
An exploration of the smaller London Rivers that thread like veins through the capital and into the Thames. Culverted, buried and redirected, these waterways can still be found in places and reflect the sky back to jaded city dwellers.
oil on canvas 57 x 41 April 2011
This was an unexpectedly hot day and everything was very still.
Oil on Canvas 150 x 210 cm sold
There is still a faintly oily sheen on the Lee Navigation, a ghostly reminder of its industrial past. Here on the bridge the skies broaden the traffic going east is going to the North Sea Ports.
oil on canvas 60 x 60 cm
The River Lea Navigation is the engineered branch of the river: shallow and broad it used to be the highway for barges running supplies up and down the industrial Lea Valley. The tow paths for the horses are still there, much beloved of cyclists and walkers.
oil on canvas sold
Deptford Creek is tidal, it flows into the Thames in the old Docklands. When the tide is out it is a steep muddy gorge, where detectorists seek tudor gold.
oil on canvas 53 x 70 cm
A dull chilly December afternoon. The drone of the North Circular Road, just yards away.
oil on canvas 61 x 41
April Looking towards Waitrose.
Epping Stories - a series of prints illustrating some of the true tales, myths and assumptions of London's nearest forest.
