Tom Scotcher

“Working directly from observation in the outdoors is imperative to my process. When I paint in the open fields, I tend to stay in the shade of the hawthorns and climbing roses. They have a mystery to them like ancient standing stones but also seem to have sprung up overnight. Their silhouetted branches take on recognisable forms, with twisted trunks and gnarled branches, they are threatening and conjure stories of wanderers getting lost and swallowed up by the wood. This fear reflects a distance from nature that I am keen to explore.

The thicket represents the seemingly untouched habitat of ancient beliefs and stories, before over grazing and intensive agriculture mutilated the landscape. Within folklore there is an acute attention given to seasonality and of time passing, we are encouraged to observe the world around us and see that it is all in flux.”