Autumn Exhibition

This work is a continuation of the 'Unearthing Dartmoor' project that I have been involved with. Unearthing Dartmoor was a collaboration with Moors Poets and Contemporary Markmakers where we walked, wrote, sketched, photographed, talked and researched together to produce a series of exhibitions and a book. We are now embarking on a second project all about the Templar Way and there will be more exhibitions and another book.

I am interested in the emotional residue of the Dartmoor environment, the physical and intangible evidence left from a once busy farming and industrial landscape. I have used surface texture, layers, collage and stitch in these works to reflect the time and layering of living change and the past.

I am a visual artist working closely with themes of psychogeography, place and embodied presence to directly communicate a personal sense of liminality and disconnection within my own connection to the landscape around me.

In essence, mapping connections between memory and emotion bound to location. Inspired culturally by the land art movement that spawned within the contemporary art scene of the '60s and '70s.

I have been photographing Dartmoor for 15 years, mostly using digital cameras. However, I sometimes feel that digital technology is almost too good, the images too sharp, the temptation always there to take a couple of hundred shots on one short walk, to constantly check my images. An addictive and unfulfulling quest for an elusive perfection.

Pinhole photography is the polar opposite of this. The technology is as basic as physically possible: a handmade wooden camera, no viewfinder, no fast shutter, not even a lens. Just light passing through a tiny hole on to a film (often film that expired many years ago, found in the back of a drawer and donated by friends). It forces me to slow down, to embrace unpredictability, to enjoy the happy accidents, the imperfections and the light leaks - and to accept a lot of failure!

The long exposure times and the softness of the images create a timeless feel, which to me reflects the many timelines I experience on Dartmoor, stretching back over the millennia. The antithesis of, and a brief escape from, the speed and instantaneousness of our 21st century lives.

My inspiration is drawn from experience of landscape, the vastness of sublime locations across the UK and beyond. Finding solitary places providing time and space for reflection, musing almost meditating as I observe nature's majesty. Spending time in the landscape alone permitting me to feel and respond emotionally is essential to me.

Working with gathered information and written notes made on location, merging them together with memory and thoughts leading to finished works in the studio.

I am a photographer based in Plymouth, Devon. My practice predominantly consists of documentary landscape photography on Dartmoor. I work in a range of mediums, with this piece being shot digitally.

'The Horse' is a visual narrative shot on Dartmoor National Park. This reflective study of political issues which directly and indirectly affect my life and my future.

Like myself, a lot of young people are worried about being able to afford their own home, an increased generational wage gap and job security. In this piece, the landscape and the camera are being used to respond to this disorder, and the resulting book is my attempt to restore direction, and gain an understanding of my own future.

While the foundation of the work is very research orientated, the exploration of the subject and its complexities has been entirely visual and based on perception. While I still believe it is vital to inform ourselves and our opinion, it is also important to endeavour to keep an open mind.

I am part of a group known as Contemporary Markmakers. We have created a book of our latest venture 'Unearthing Dartmoor', which features my own work. The project represents the creative collaboration of local artists and poets working together on Dartmoor over three years starting in 2020.

This is an ongoing and evolving project, with much work not yet exhibited and unseen, many word strings unprinted and unheard.

Based in Plymouth, and an alumni of the Royal Drawing School, London, Sarah's current work explores the fluid boundaries between the unconscious, memory, mythology, magical thinking, landscape and bodily forms, with a particular interest in co-dwelling and co-existence and our tendency to anthropomorphise and project ideals and expectations onto non-human forms.

The art works submitted form part of a series entitled 'Dartmoor: Somina', with 'somnia' referring to 'dream shapes'. The landscape around Sheeps Tor, Burrator, Down Tor, Sharpitor and Leather Tor has become imprinted onto Sarah's consciousness, having grown up close to this area. The series of artworks explore ideas of grief, dreams, desire and trauma embodied in the landscape.

Sarah's work has been selected for the prestigious Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2024 and will tour the UK in 2024 and 2025. She recently undertook an artist residency at Dumfries House, Scotland, supported by The King's Trust and the Royal Drawing School, and has been long listed for the Jackson Art Prize (2024) and Women In Art Prize (2024).

My artwork is based on landscapes, I regularly walk on Dartmoor; it is a constant inspiration for me. I paint in acrylics and create collages and prints.

From my studio in Torquay, South Devon, I produce limited edition lino and mezzotint prints, and detailed works in pencil and charcoal. I am interested in subjects that provoke a sense of the wild, mysterious and uncanny through which I might explore human experience in the context of a world often hidden from sight.

My subjects include the moorlands and coastlines of Devon and Cornwall, the random movement of dancers across dance floors, the flight of crows through imagined forests, the shapeshifting qualities of water and stone, and the half-forgotten artifacts and folk tales that haunt the landscapes that surround me.

The essence of my work attempts to convey the timeless spirit of the West Country, with its ever-changing moods and atmospheric scenery. The wild moors and ancient country lanes reveal an alternative to the constant buzz and connectivity of modern life. My depictions of windswept hawthorn and misty valleys provide a metaphor for an underlying deep sense of place. My home village backs onto Dartmoor where I can experience these surroundings in all weathers. New ideas evolve from thought provoking environments creating the inspiration for my oil paintings.

I was educated at university in Plymouth and Goldsmith's College London, fostering a lifelong interest in the Arts and Humanities. As an Art teacher for many years, I also continued to develop my painting and drawing skills. Recently I have adopted painting as my sole occupation, where I now regularly exhibit both locally and nationally, having held many open studio events. I have been accepted into numerous juried exhibitions across the country including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2023.

Maria Floyd is a painter based in Devon and Cornwall and has based her work there for over 15 years. She studied Fine Art / History of Art BA (Hons) at Goldsmiths College, London in the early 1990s and has had a passion for painting from a young age.

Her paintings are made as a direct response to a landscape or seascape and are deep rooted in the North Cornish coastline and the dramatic landscape of Dartmoor. Connecting abstract elements with expressive drawing they convey a feeling of a fleeting moment, capture a situation or experience. Works on paper and board are made outside and the elements make their mark, influencing the finished piece which may then be further developed in the studio. Making observational sketches outside is at the heart of her work, and experimenting with a variety of media and tools at every stage of the process.

I have a long history of painting Dartmoor. More recently the way I work it is walking the Moor in all weathers/lights and then making what I call textured artifacts back in the studio. I want to suggest the roughness and strangeness of the Moor.

They are on a mixture of misshapen canvas, board and other materials, often plastic sheeting, soils come into the paint. Despite the materials, I like to play with a romanticised view of the Moor with watercolour-like areas in paintings.

Maybe the images suggest a more complicated view of the Moor, but there are just the wonderful clouds.

My work is based on walking and plein air drawing. Initial sketches can inform later work in the studio. Works convey a mood rather than an accurate transcription. I see them as meditations on an experience of landscape, fleeting and elusive, rather than direct representations.

When an oral tradition is committed to print, it takes a miracle to get things right. It is well documented that the necessary care wasn't always taken for Dartmoor. As a result, the old names and stories fade with the passing of time - lost in translation from a local dialect to a visiting ear with a notebook and bad hand-writing.

This new series by letterpress printers Emma Hogbin and Jon Palmer captures the traditional Devonian tor names alongside their location. The prints are named according to the name assigned on the map in 2024. Printed using wood and metal type at our traditional letterpress studio in Princetown, the heart of Dartmoor's high moor. With combined degrees in Environmental Science, and Sustainable Product and Furniture Design, makers Emma and Jon bring a unique perspective to the endangered Heritage Craft of letterpress.

I am an artist experimenting in the realms of drawing, painting, photography, film and printmaking to explore the narratives that draw us into the landscape and connect us to nature.

Immersing myself in place, my aim is to translate my phenomenological experience into material art forms that communicate the significance of place, the flow of time and the beauty that surrounds us.

In my creative project 'Out Of Bounds', I explore the complex relationship between people and land over time. How we have worshipped it, transformed it and sought to possess it whilst restricting access to others. Visiting ancient sites on Dartmoor where I feel the veil thins between realities, I have mapped my experiences through the light activating process of cyanotype, layered with charcoal and pastel.

I am an illustrator based in Liverton, Devon and have focused one stream of my work on Dartmoor for the past few years. Having grown up in the area I find the moors a constant source of inspiration whether it be colourway, lines and angles, atmosphere or textures.

I enjoy getting up to the moors to experience the landscape and find aspects, views or details that I want to capture, which I photograph and then illustrate at home by hand in pen and then worked on digitally. I don't get to do this enough, however, so it's a continual aim of mine to cover more of the moor!

Drawn to ancient places that have been shaped by the elements and man over centuries, Amanda's landscapes always have an emotional connection that often stem from childhood. The feel, mood and sense of the place is central to her response which is made from sketching, memory or a combination of both. Oil paint is used in layers using many techniques to create depth, tone and texture. Her style varies from the literal to the abstract and is never predetermined. Her pictures emerge as she paints to express her feelings of being at that place, her feet feeling the ground, her eyes capturing the light and her memory the mood. Amanda's paintings have been described as visceral, raw, sculptural, meditative and atmospheric.

Born in Cornwall from generations of Cornish men and women, Amanda spent her childhood in Devon and fell in love with Dartmoor whilst staying with her grandparents at Haytor. She lives Cornwall, in a village just five miles from where she was born, with her dog Jago.

Over the last eight months I travelled regularly across the moor from Princetown to Ashburton. During those journeys I experienced the full range and wonderful rage of Dartmoor weather. It was during the time of the long winter and endless months of incessant rain. I walked or drove through the heavy mists, downpours, wind and looming storms. I also witnessed some extraordinary moments of breaking light, and golden skies. These paintings are a response to the memory of those experiences.

After 30 years as a professional mosaic artist I have changed direction in the last two years and I make illustrations in pen and ink, lino print, print collage and painting. Dartmoor is a constant inspiration, where I sketch en plein air and work from sketches and photos in the studio. I'm currently interested in views from and between Tors and the birds that live there.

I'm studying part time for an MA in poetics of the imagination at Dartington Schumacher college.

My creative process focusses on monotype printmaking and a passion for drawing natural elements, particularly trees. By blending these two processes I create a meeting space between imagined and literal representations, giving the viewer a sense of nature and their place within it.

I have lived in Dartmoor National Park for more than 20 years. The images I make are not about realistic representation. Paper and colours combine to capture a sensation, a moment, a feeling - clouds blurring horizons, the soughing of molinia, the slow advance of lichen… Some days, high on the moor, I focus on limitless landscape and space, stoical hawthorns, or the dynamic architecture of tors. At other times, I respond to the complexities of intimate valleys - perhaps the tapestry of species-rich moorland meadows or quiet secret woodlands. Walking, then making, gives me a deeper understanding of life on Dartmoor - a tension between nature, conservation, preservation, heritage, tourism and the livelihoods of those who live there. I am intrigued by the many human footprints on the moor - the geometry of prehistoric field systems, reaves, ghosts of old mines, blackened leftovers following the violent swaling of a hillside.

These works are part of a collection of images made in response to Dartmoor Reaves.

I am a professional artist whose practice is fuelled by a deep attachment and fascination for Dartmoor where I have lived for thirty years. My inspiration is and always has been Dartmoor, its farming, mining and natural landscape. My process is exploratory and involves drawing, printmaking, fashioning small objects using natural materials, and poetry-prose. Over the last four years I have been focussing on the Bronze Age remains on Dartmoor which has resulted in three solo shows, a limited edition artist book, and a short audio play and reading broadcast on Sound Art Radio, Dartington. My research involves a study of archaeological texts and visits to museums to draw flints and other artefacts. My artist book 'Fragments' is in loose leaf form, with etchings and poetry-prose and based on one of the artefacts from the Dartmoor 'White Horse Hill' excavation.

I have an Hons degree in Philosophy, a Master's degree in Printmaking, and a Master's degree in Art History. I am one of the co-directors for the CIC company Contemporary Artist Membership Platform for Devon and Cornwall.

For me, painting is an intensely absorbing experience: the push and pull of paint on canvas, the alchemy of colour mixing, that layering on of paint, rubbing it off, layering it on again, standing back, assessing, re-assessing. When it goes well - a great sense of achievement; when it doesn't a feeling of, "I've forgotten how to do this!" As Degas put it, "When you don't know how to paint, it's easy, but it's difficult when you do." I like losing myself in the challenge.

Landscape is very important to me. It is the perfect antidote to the stresses and stains of life where we too often feel 'cabined, cribbed, confined', so I try to convey a sense of light and space. Inspiration comes from walking - especially by the sea or on the moors, where I can stretch my eyes and take in wide skies, sweeping vistas, the endless horizon. Even in my figurative work, those figures are usually interacting with the landscape.

Landscape painting also enables me to be an activist - a very quiet eco-activist. I am never going to glue myself to the M25, but I do hope my paintings convey a sense of how beautiful but fragile the environment is, how much we have to lose, and how we all need to play our part in protecting it.

I am a third year student at the Arts University Plymouth and live on the edge of Dartmoor. My subject matter of my work for this exhibition is the iconic landscape of Dartmoor and its inspiration from ancient structures from past communities and human endurance.

Jon is one of the three founding directors of The Dartmoor Collective, a community interest group promoting the work of photographers and visual artists who work on the moor.

He has lived on the eastern edge of Dartmoor for 13 years and has a long-standing fascination with the ever-changing weather and light on the moor and the myriad ways in which layers of human history have left their physical marks and lines on the landscape.

His photography explores this sense of the moor as an anthropic landscape and the inherent tensions in the fact that the “wild” qualities of the moor which many of us value - its emptiness, the sense of wide open space and isolation - are often also signifiers of Dartmoor's past exploitation and declining biodiversity.

The Half Light series of images were taken in autumn and winter in a range of locations across North Dartmoor at the start or end of day and are intended to capture how deep shadow and low-light can, counter-intuitively, often 'open up' a deeper appreciation of the complex processes which have shaped the stark Dartmoor landscape as we see it today.