University project: Lambs quay wood

  • Sam Evans

These are a series of drawings and paintings that I have made for a project about a woodland close to home for the theme underground overground. Thinking about caves, mines and wide open overground spaces.

I make work that reflects the world around where I live. When I lived in Bristol, I made drawings, prints and a handful of paintings of the city around me. With the lockdown and the closure of University, I returned to my parents’ home on the edge of the Forest of Dean. I started to make work that drew on the landscape, not just the open skies and broad vista of the River Severn, by which we live, but also the hidden caverns and tunnels of the many caves and mines that riddle the Forest. From these I began to see landscape as a structure, or structures, much like my cityscapes, with caves not just mysterious and scary but also shelters for refuge. A place of solace in these often isolated times.