TIM WOOLCOCK 2023
Tim Woolcock Recent Landscape Paintings
Cover: Dorset Coast, 2019 An original, contemporary painting entitled ‘Dorset Coast’, 2019 by Tim Woolcock (British, b. 1952), framed oil on panel board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height:12” (32cm) Length:17” (42cm)
ISBN 978-1-901403-24-4 Photography - Ken Adlard, New Moon Photography. Design – Rosalie Herrera, Orphans Press
Tim Woolcock Recent Landscape Paintings
Foreword W
e first saw Tim’s work in an exhibition fifteen years ago and were delighted to purchase one of his landscapes of the west country. We have been following his career with a keen interest since then and are pleased to be giving him a solo exhibition at the Sladmore. Whilst at first glance, a show of landscape paintings may seem somewhat of a departure for a predominantly sculpture gallery, our focus has always been on the natural world, undoubtedly captured by Tim in his own two-dimensional language.
Nona Horswell September 2023
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Paintings
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1. ‘Dorset Spring’ 2018 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 27.5" (70cm) Length: 34.5" (88cm) 4
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2. ‘Dorset Coast’, 2019 Framed oil on panel board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 12” (32cm) Length: 17” (42cm) 6
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3. A Wiltshire Stream’, 2023 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 43” (108cm) Length: 54” (137cm) 8
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4. ‘Wiltshire Fields’ 2022 Framed oil on panel board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 23” (58cm) Length: 28” (72cm) 10
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5. ‘Cotswold Orchard’, 2022 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 24.5” (62cm) Length: 31.5” (80cm) 12
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6. ’Descending Cotswold Summer Moon’, 2022 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 25.5” (65cm) Length: 31.5” (80cm) 14
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7. ’Donegal Stream’, 2022 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 23.6” (60cm) Length: 31.5” (80cm) 16
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8. ‘Oxfordshire Dusk’ 2022 Framed oil on panel board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 21” (54cm) Length: 25” (64cm) 18
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9. ‘Donegal Dusk’, 2023 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 23.6” (60cm) Length: 31.5” (80cm) 20
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10. ‘A Cotswold Evening’, 2023 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 43” (108cm) Length: 54” (137cm)) 22
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11. ‘County Wicklow Stream’, 2023 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 22” (56cm) Length: 27.6” (70cm) 24
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12. ‘The Red Gate’, 2023 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 25.6” (65cm) Length: 33.1” (84cm) 26
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13. ‘Wiltshire Streams, Pink Moon’, 2023 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 24” (62cm) Length: 34” (87cm) 28
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14. ‘Connemara Blue Moon’, 2020 Framed oil on board, signed, dated and titled verso. Height: 28” (72cm) Length: 36” (92cm) 30
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T
im Woolcock, (born 1952 in Lancashire, England) is a British painter working in the tradition of the 1950s. As a youngster, Tim spent holidays in Cornwall and was enchanted by the turquoise colour of the sea and the quality of the light and noticed how these were different to the colours of his Lancashire home. During his teenage years Tim became inspired by the particular qualities of the Cornish landscape, and so began an early influence on his painting. Woolcock’s landscapes have often been described as mystical in their composition. He has always shown an affinity with Zen and this is reflected in most of his work. He mixes figurative elements with geometric patterns that combine to evoke a love of the landscape, the cosmos and the balance of the natural world. The striking, bright pigments used in his oil paintings also make his work distinctive. Though Tim’s paintings have an independent strength and clarity, his painting shows inspiration from Modern British painters and St Ives School artists, particularly Ben Nicholson, Patrick Heron and William Scott. The London Times art critic Joanna Pitman wrote this about Woolcock’s paintings, style and influences: “His landscapes evoke the beauty and grandeur of the English or Irish Countryside... Through his instinctive ordering of shape, colour and space they offer the viewer a rich ambiguity and scope for interpretation that gives generous room for contemplation. The scale and proportions of his works present an internal harmony and this mood is completed in the delicate balance between form and the exquisite colours he uses. We see lyrical lines and geometric fragmented shapes - Woolcock has seemed to show an interest in Cubism - and a wonderful sense of contour and drama”. “There is a meditative serenity in his colour variations which perhaps reflects the contemplative personality of Woolcock himself”. Tim Woolcock’s works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, are in private and public collections worldwide and have sold at auction. In 2009 the Office of Public Works in Dublin, Ireland acquired one of his artworks for the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Sarah Taft 33
In conversation with
TIM WOOLCOCK
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y landscape paintings follow in a lineage of English and Irish countryside painters; a long tradition stretching back even perhaps before Samuel Palmer and finishing up, at the moment, with the great illuminating works of David Hockney. I’ve always admired Paul Nash - the Second World War painter. One of my main thoughts with painting is: if you are thinking you are not painting, and if you are painting you're not thinking. In ‘Zen in the Art of Archery’ the 1948 book by Eugen Herrigel, there was a piece where he described the Archer shooting at the target. When he or she forgets themselves, they generally hit the mark but if there's a self pre-occupation, they don't hit the bullseye unfortunately. I started doing landscape paintings as an aside. I had a couple of abstract paintings on the go, and I had this huge studio, almost the size of an aircraft hangar when we were living in Ireland. The countryside was so beautiful - pure agricultural countryside - I took a shine to it straight away and I started painting the countryside of Kilkenny, County Carlow and what they called the ‘garden of Ireland’ County Wicklow and then I reverted to the English landscapes of Wiltshire and Dorset and Devon, where we used to cycle around these places. The landscapes are generally an intuitive evocation of a place. I don't do plein air painting. David Hockney only started doing plein air painting of Yorkshire when he was 70 I think. I've never gone out with my easel into the countryside. Some of them are landscapes of the mind. I do dream of landscape sometimes when I'm falling asleep.
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You’ll notice the Irish landscapes, especially the ones in Connemara, have a different palette, a more intense green, and they lack the agricultural development that is present in the English landscapes. Places like Dorset, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire, if you go there in spring and summer, you can almost sit in a meadow and be transported back to the days of Samuel Palmer with shepherds and sheep. People have asked what the small circles in my landscape paintings denote. There are many things we can't see in the British landscape. I suppose the planetary influence on the earth is a lot to do with those symbols. With a fallen moon I can denote time passing in a painting which is very difficult to do. It's honouring the cosmos: without the sun my heart wouldn’t beat, none of this would exist. This piece of paper in front of me wouldn’t exist because the tree wouldn't exist, we wouldn’t have this beautiful English countryside. It’s fascinating. It's down to interdependent co-origination. Also, there's also almost an organic replication in the farming that we see in the landscapes. Manmade grooves and plough lines have become fascinating for me. It is as if man has directed his own art inadvertently onto the English landscape.
Tim Woolcock, 2023
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Public Collections 2009
Government of Ireland. Office of Public Works, Dublin, Ireland
2019
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital
Exhibitions 2002
St Gilles Gallery, Norwich
2016
London Art Fair, Paisnel Gallery, London
2003
Bloxham Gallery, London
2018
London Art Fair, Paisnel Gallery, London
2004
Russell Gallery, London; Art London; Art Chicago
2018
St Ives & Post War, The Nine British Art, London
2005
Royal Society of British Artists; Russell Gallery, London; Art London; Langham Gallery, Suffolk
2018
British Art Fair, London;
2018
British Art Fair, The Nine British Art, London
2019
London Art Fair, The Nine British Art, London
2021
The Nine British Art. London Art Fair 2021
2022
The Abstract Line. The Stow Art House
2006
Lemon Street Gallery, Cornwall
2009
13 Boston Fine Art Show
2012
Jorgensen Gallery Dublin
2016
Paisnel Gallery, London
2017
Paisnel Gallery, London
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