When award-winning artist Robyn Litchfield travelled to New Zealand to gather material for her new exhibition Let Time Be Still, huge storms closed the airports as cyclones and landslides raged around her, flooding the very rivers she needed to traverse, and making her trip to the North Island impossible.
‘Let Time Be Still is about working in a new way and taking chances, to keep you moving forward as an artist’
However, she bided her time and managed to travel around the South Island, kayaking down rivers and lakes, walking through the forests, hiking, and staying in camps and lodges to visit the ancient Kahikatea swamp forests which have inspired her new collection of paintings.
Her new exhibition at Darle and The Bear in Woodstock showcases these 12 new works which evoke a foregone age of exploration and adventure, as well as honing in on a perilous existence in these days of deforestation and global warming.
Robyn’s reflected landscapes replicate that same experience of seeing things for the first time, a poignant footnote of her homesickness for a land she left decades ago
The ancient forests reimagined in her paintings are however safe, for now, found in New Zealand’s numerous national parks, their history and biodiversity preserved.
Retracing the footsteps of her ancestors – Robyn’s great-great-grandfather emigrated to New Zealand in 1840 and in so doing set a precedent for venturing into the great unknown – the glory of Robyn’s reflected landscapes replicate that same experience of seeing things for the first time, a poignant footnote of her homesickness for a land she left decades ago.
“I wanted to get across that sense of wonder so people think about how we can save and preserve our landscapes”
“A lot of my inspiration comes from my personal and family history and the feeling that these lands and forests remain untouched by humans, and what that does to your sense of self,” she explains from her home in Islington.
“This has been about my own experiences in these lands – of going into the unknown and what that does to your senses.
“It was also an opportunity to recreate yourself through the stillness, contemplation and reflection that the sub tropical forests allow, while considering the incredible eco system still thriving there today.
“There was so much to draw from. I wanted to get across that sense of wonder by finding the moments when I was most awestruck, to help people think about how we can save and preserve our landscapes,” Robyn adds.
Robyn’s great-great-grandfather emigrated to New Zealand in 1840, setting a precedent for venturing into the great unknown
Formerly using historic postcards of and the glass plate photo images taken by her great-grandfather (who travelled extensively around New Zealand and wrote the country’s first travel guides), this is the first time Robyn has struck out on her own, each new work named after James K. Baxter‘s poems.
“It is only since I’ve come to live in the UK that I’ve come to appreciate New Zealand’s nature and value it,” she admits.
So does she feel the same way about the UK’s landscape? “Absolutely – I’m off next week to Norfolk and Wales and always plan to paint them, but for some reason I’m more inspired in New Zealand even though I don’t want to live there.”
After four months of hard work to get the exhibition ready, Robyn opened her new exhibition Let Time Be Still earlier this month in London’s Fitzrovia Gallery and at Darle and The Bear Gallery in Woodstock today (Thursday June 29-July 23).
Robyn started painting quite late; she only graduated from the City and Guilds of London Art School with an MA Fine Art (distinction) in 2017, after a career in fashion as a designer, pattern cutter and couturier.
She even helped craft one of Princess Di’s Catherine Walker dresses, which explains her penchant for detail, pattern and the print-like finish she achieves in her paintings: “The smaller works are like stepping into a scene – a first impression if you like,” she says.
“But more than that, Let Time Be Still is about working in a new way and taking chances, trusting that it will work, that is what keeps you moving forward as an artist.”
Robyn Litchfield’s Let Time Be Still opens at Darle and The Bear on June 29 and runs until July 23. FIND OUR MORE HERE
