David Hepher Fusina's Field IV, 1998

Working outdoors, like any good Impressionist, I am always having to keep up with an ever-changing light situation, with my own changing perception of what I am seeing. If you're the sort of painter that I am, it's good to actually be there doing it for real, in front of you, rather than always working in the studio. I'm always aware that if one works too much in the studio, you can become over a period of time, divorced from the actuality of the place you are painting. So I'm quite glad to do the landscapes every now and again as a kind of medicine, to stop getting too cerebral about the whole thing. - David Hepher

Created from Hepher's time spent in the South West of France, this work captures the essence of place, incorporating sandy soil from the local area mixed with paint, echoing the physicality of the artist's renowned London tower blocks. As loose brushwork evokes the calm of nature in fields of vines, bushes, woods and sky, the tranquil rhythm contrasts the ever-present movement and traces of human life felt within Hepher's dense cityscapes, while an underlying attention to geometric planes and structural layers remains.