Ruth Wharton
My studio oil paintings and etchings are developed from working in the landscape, drawing in charcoal or graphite, making oil studies and taking photographs. Landscape, particularly that of the Pennines, is my primary focus. I am interested in working and worked landscapes: those decisive wall lines enclose land under the open fell, quarries scar the hill, water channelled for forgotten purpose at the old mine, floods transform the familiar scene, storm-blown trees bend sideways, valley fields vaunt a vivid monochrome green.
There is a damaged and poignant beauty where silence has overtaken the noise of industry, of human endeavour in the middle of nowhere, falling to ruin. Here is a stark contrast with the wide sky of scudding clouds, the permanence of landforms and nature’s absolute indifference to us, but even where it is beautiful, this landscape, as many others, cautions for the future. This meeting of opposites is where my interest in this landscape lies.
