Translating the land

This collection marks an important moment in my practice - my first official series of abstract works. While landscape has always shaped the way I see and paint, this body of work steps beyond literal representation and into something more instinctive, more emotional, and, for me, more personal.

As a landscape architect, I have been trained to study the land closely - to read its contours, understand its systems, and respond to the subtle ways it holds history, movement, and life. That process of observation and interpretation is at the heart of this collection. In many ways, these works are a continuation of that practice, just expressed through paint rather than plans. I don’t simply depict the land; I read it and translate it.

Translating the Land is about expressing the feeling of a place rather than its physical details. Instead of painting what the land looks like, I paint what it feels like to stand within it - the quiet shifts of light, the weight of still air, the rhythm of trees, the subtle contours that guide your eye and your body through a space. These works are not maps or views, but interpretations - translations of memory, movement, and connection.

Abstract painting allows me a kind of freedom that feels deeply honest. Without the need to define a horizon or describe a tree, I can respond purely to mood, colour, and gesture. The marks become emotional traces rather than visual explanations. In this way, abstraction becomes one of the most personal forms of expression in my practice - a language that speaks from instinct rather than observation.

Just as I translate the land through paint, others may find themselves translating their own experiences as they spend time with the work.

THIS COLLECTION IS AVAILABLE EXCUSIVELY TO MY NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS FROM SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2026. Sign up to my newsletter.

“Translate”, 30x30cm, framed in white, linen canvas