A couple of days ago, I followed an orange car along the river road close to my studio. It was early, the air still and unusually dry after so many days of rain. As the car moved ahead, it stirred the leaves into the air, a sudden swirl of yellow and orange beech leaves rising up and tumbling down in its wake. It was unexpected and strangely beautiful. For a moment, it felt as though time had paused, and the movement of the leaves had become their own kind of quiet theatre.
The colours have been so strong this year, deep yellows, rusted oranges, copper tones that stay in the mind long after you’ve walked past them.
The roads and paths here in west Wales have been full of alchemical dots, yellow and orange scatterings of leaves, bright hips, and deep red berries, with acorns underfoot that crack underfoot and reveal their scarlet fecundity. All of them are natural marks on the human-made surface, a quiet map of change.
They say it's a sign of a hard winter and I find a strange comfort in that.
Nature is preparing herself, patiently and predictably; but this year with spectacular drama.
After sending my last newsletter, I received a message that inspired me to revisit "Burnt Norton" by T. S. Eliot. The moment with the leaves brought this passage to mind:
“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”
There is something in that phrase, “the still point of the turning world,” that feels very close to painting. And to autumn itself.
Current and Upcoming Exhibitions
• Small Is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, opening 21 November 2025 - 10 January 2026
• A series of ten new artworks for Holly Hunt, a Richeldis Fine Art collaboration, are now available to see in the New York gallery.
• Time, group exhibition at the Loughran Gallery, opens until 31st December.