Hydrangeas, Spaces Connecting, Hillston: Gardens: Fragments of Life and Loss

Unlike an earlier work from this series, Trees Connecting, Summer of Smoke, Hillston is an eight-panel en plein air painting that focuses on the compositional interplay of foreground spaces and how these elements can serve to invite the viewer into the scene. This work shifts emphasis toward the solid, more graphic forms of shrubs, trees, and hedges—rendered with a weight and presence that contrasts with the more linear, airy treatment found in the previous piece. The intention here was to explore how gardeners consciously compose space through the deliberate planting and shaping of foliage, and how these choices influence our movement through and perception of the landscape. Each panel captures a fragment of this constructed environment, emphasising how vegetation not only defines boundaries but also punctuates space, guiding the eye and evoking a sensory response to the garden’s structure and rhythm.

This painting is from the exhibition and publication, Gardens: Fragments of Life and Loss – an artistic enquiry that systematically explores themes of memory, impermanence, and transformation through the motif of the garden. Drawing upon visual language and observational practices, the body of work investigates how natural environments serve as metaphors for human experience, particularly in relation to loss and regeneration. The paintings communicate knowledge by documenting and interpreting the cyclical processes of change and adaptation in nature, offering insights into how landscapes reflect emotional and cultural memory. This body of work contributes to interdisciplinary dialogues between art, ecology, and the human condition through a methodical engagement with site, material, and temporality.