A YEAR IN THE DARK PEAK 2020

KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak ‘The concept for this exhibition was relatively simple, having painted the landscape of the Peak District for over 30 years I wanted to create iconic images, highlighting the essence of the four seasons. The show focuses on those places I have visited and painted hundreds of times, in all weathers and seasons. I have returned to the same areas of landscape again and again and in doing so I have been able to observe the extensive variety of changes that occur on a daily basis.

For me, all landscape painting is about mood and this includes feelings about colour, content and composition and for the viewer these aspects all combine to create an emotional response to a picture. The various moods created by the changing seasons have always been vital to my working process, some examples would be; the quiet of falling snow on Kinder Scout, the rage of spring rain on Stanage Edge and the scorching power of the summer sun on Mam Tor, all these conditions I have attempted to communicate in my paintings.

During the Covid 19 pandemic open landscape and especially the National Parks have been visited by many more people. Since the lockdown restrictions were lifted the visitors to the Peak District have increased by a third and over thirteen million used the park last year.

Each individual finds their own reasons for being in the landscape but it does seem as though there has been a heightened awareness and need, perhaps on an instinctive level, to connect to the natural world. Therefore, in these paintings I wanted to express my own feelings of awe when contemplating the landscape and communicate my sense of hope for the future.

The poet John Clare’s writing has always been an inspiration for me and his poem ‘Autumn’ is a work I have returned to numerous times while searching for inspiration for this exhibition.’

Kristan Baggaley September 2020

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Kristan studied Fine Art in Nottingham and Birmingham before moving back to Sheffield several years ago, drawn back by the open landscape of the Dark Peak, with which his work is often synonymous. His heavily textured paintings of the moors and grit-stone edges in all seasons and weather describe and explore the fall of light, cloud and shadows over immense distances. Although his paintings are usually specific to particular places in the landscape, abstracted visionary qualities become uppermost. The layered depths in these landscapes correspond to the memory and association connected with familiar places. Baggaley knows the land so well that the moors in all their guises have become a metaphor for intimations of hope and harmony that are only to be found in nature; he believes that in painting the familiar subject matter, the inessential falls away leaving the essential.

The surface of the work is all-important and he drags and cuts the material around the canvas, using forks and combs to plough the paint as a farmer may work his fields. In his technique he adds fine sand to the oil paint, which he applies with large palette knives and decorator’s brushes. Sketchbook work is all-important when considering composition and colour. Indian ink and thick graphite pencils are used in this preparatory work and the movement and action of mark making are gestures learnt for the subsequent canvas work. Kristan Baggaley believes that without a strong spiritual connection and feeling for his subject matter the work could never effectively communicate to an audience.

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Spring Showers, Stanage End

150cm x 100cm £2750

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Spring Fields, Hope Valley 100cm x 50cm £1200

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Spring Fields, Derwent Valley 100cm x 50cm £1200

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Spring, Moorland Marsh, Stanage End

150cm x 100cm £2750

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Spring, Distant Showers,, Burabge Moor 25cm x 25cm £295

Spring, Cumulus Clouds over Burbage Moor 45cm x 35cm £550

Sumer, Clearing Rain, Burabge Moor 25cm x 25cm £295

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Summer, Dry Ground, Ridge Footpath, Mam Tor 100cm x 100 cm £1960

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Summer Colours, Higgar Tor and Carl Wark

100cm x 150cm £2750

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Summer, Flowering Heather Toward Higgar Tor 120cm x 60cm £1550

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Summer Heather toward Stanage Edge

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Autumn Bracken Across Stanage Edge 100cm x 70 cm £1495

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Autumn Colours, Burbage Edge 100cm x 30cm £875

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Autumn by John Clare The thistledown’s flying, though the winds are still, On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill, The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot; Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot.

The ground parched and cracked is like over baked bread, The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.

The fallow fields glitter like water indeed, And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.

Hill tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun, And the rivers we’re eying burn to gold as they run; Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air; Whoever looks around sees Eternity there

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Autumn Toward Carl Wark and Higgar Tor 120cm x 60cm £1550

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Autumn, Clearing Rain, Stanage Edge 120cm x60 cm £1550

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Autumn Mist, Stanage Edge

150cm x100cm £2750

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Winter, Clearing Shower, Stanage Edge 100cm x100cm

£1960

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Sunset Across Burbage Moor 80cm x 80cm £1450

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak Winter, Snow Shower Burbage Moor 30cm x 30cm £350

Winter, Snow Falling, Burbage Moor 100cm x 70cm £1495 Winter, Softly Snow Falling Stanage Edge 30cm x 30cm £350

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

Winter, Heavy Snowfall Kinder Scout 120cm x 80cm £1960

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

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KRISTAN BAGGALEY: A Year in the Dark Peak

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