Devon and Mars

This painting began as a representation of a building within a landscape, which was the birthplace of my own artistic practice, and site of personal significance for all who passed through it in their formative years (an art college which has now been closed down ready for demolition). As the painting progressed the building itself was obliterated and the landscape altered considerably, although the spirit of the original location lingers. As nostalgia descended, the red of Devon soil flooded the painting and with it thoughts of the planet Mars, an apparently barren world which nevertheless holds in our imaginations either the residue of past life or the potential for it. Plants within the painting simultaneously represent the park-like grounds which surrounded the art college building and also depict some of the earliest botanical forms on Earth, some of which grow today in the red earth of the Rougemont Gardens in Exeter. This is part of a small body of work associated with the