"I have spent the past decade travelling as much as I can, seeking inspiration from far and wide, but over the past year or so my paintings have changed dramatically, in line with all our lives. I haven’t yearned for exotic travel as I’d expected, and in spite of being in beautiful countryside I have hardly ventured out with my paints. Instead I have been overcome by the desire to paint everything growing within the confines of our garden. Like many people, last year I discovered the joys of gardening.
My husband and I recently moved to Gloucestershire where we are lucky enough to have a small garden. Gardens have always been a part of my life but somehow it has escaped my notice until now. My parents have a beautiful garden and my mother’s knowledge of plants and flowers is second to none. Harry, my husband has always been green fingered and while his contemporaries would go out clubbing he would stay at home and tend to his dahlias. So it was only a matter of time before I would get the bug too. And what an adventure it has been! How could I have come this far in life without noticing how papery thin the petal of a peony is, or the sculptural shapes of nasturtium tendrils. The sweet peas have filled my paintings as abundantly as they have their beds. It’s hard to describe in words the satisfaction of growing something from seed and seeing it through to a finished painting. The magnolia lasted only days before the frost got to it, so the urgency to paint that I used to feel when travelling is still there. In Cornwall, where I have painted the sea and beaches hundreds of times, I found myself more taken by the wild flowers on the cliffs, standing strong against the wind, than by the coast beyond.
The process of scrutiny is meditative, and many gardeners would say the same about growing and nurturing plants. The objects in my paintings have been given to me or collected at key moments in my life, and I can’t help but ponder on the people and events that lead to them creeping into my pictures as I paint them. While I can’t deny a slight double entendre, the title of this exhibition, Reflections, sums up the experience of making and of looking at these paintings."
- Alice Boggis-Rolfe
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