This is the View From Birkrigg Common. It’s hanging in a group show in Leeds called And Did Those Feet, an exhibition exploring William Blake’s poem, Jerusalem.
The inspiration for the picture came in March this year when I visited Birkrigg Common, Ulverston, Cumbria, and was struck by the panorama visible from the triangulation point.
Since then I have painted it several times, usually as a series of 4 interlocking images, that to me represent many of the elements of Blake’s Jerusalem:
1. England’s mountains green are there – the fells of the Lake District.
2. Ancient times have left traces such as the Bronze Age stone circle.
3. The pleasant pastures of Bardsea, with their sheep and lambs, look down on the purple sands of Morecambe Bay at low tide, and the island where monks built a holy chapel in the 14th Century.
4. Here can be seen more clouded hills, and at the far right of the painting, Heysham nuclear power station – our latest version of a satanic mill.
The exhibition runs until 24th May 2016 at St Edmund’s Church, Lidgett Park Road, Leeds LS8 1JN. I’ll be there on Sunday 22nd May, 11:30am – 1pm, if you’d like to say hello and see my longest painting yet – it’s 10 feet wide.
Great sketches, and watercolours Jo—it was good to catch up on your work. Russell.
I agree with the previous comments. There is something poetic in your paintings
These are just breathtaking. So evocative and so elegantly done. I love how you say so much with what, by themselves, are swipes of color – but how you arrange them and ally them with each other, just wow! the result. I love the purple sands with the tiny animals standing out above. Just wonderful work.
These paintings are terrific Jo – really evocative of the poem, they have a wonderful lightness to them. A great set.