Andrew Oliver

Landscapes, distant downs with buttons of trees, shear sweeps of chalk under the green grass, woods with old chalk diggings, making caves of tree roots, ancient worn paths winding this way and that. Old concrete aerodrome runways on a plateau surrounded by woods and commons. These were the landscapes in which I grew up and which formed such strong impressions with their shapes and smells, my playgrounds.

 

These places are still so much part of me, the wooded valleys of Surrey, they have given me a love of looking at landscape, it's shapes and lines, made by man and nature.

 

I like to draw and work out of doors when I can, this has often been when travelling, in sketchbooks or struggling with an easel and trying to paint under the sun, with flies landing on wet paint and the light too strong.

 

Lately I have tried to move onto painting at home in the studio. Trying to capture something of those views, the form and colours that I remember. It's a continuous suprise and challenge.