Author: Bridget Macdonald

This painting is currently showing in the Royal West of England Academy Open at their Bristol galleries until January 2025: Crows in the September Orchard, oil on linen, 76 x 102 cms

A new drawing currently showing in Portfolio, a group exhibition at Quay Arts, Newport Harbour, Isle of Wight throughout October and November: The Broken Wall and Tower, charcoal on paper, 89 x 76 cm

A new drawing which was included in Poets in the Landscape at The Poetry House, Ledbury, Herefordshire in September: Do not forget me quite, O Severn Meadows (Ivor Gurney), charcoal on paper, 56 x 76 cm

I have had a flurry of exhibitions over the last six months and have got very behind with posting information about them. Currently showing in Great Malvern Priory until 27 October is a reprise of the installation Rain, Wind and Change which was shown at Worcester Cathedral in May 2023. These two landscape drawings are included as well as a series of drawings relating to the life of Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, who died at Ludlow Castle at the age of 15 in 1501. He was buried in an exquisite chantry tomb in the Cathedral after an elaborate funeral service. Arthur also appears in the great Magnificat window in Malvern Priory, which was donated by Henry VII and others. He is shown kneeling at the bottom of this beautiful window and so Great Malvern Priory is another very appropriate setting for this exhibition. I will post some more images when I can.
Before that I showed a selection of works which were in the Art First exhibition A Deeper Landscape (April/May 2024) in a summer show at Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden during July/August/September under the title The Turning Year.
Then in September I showed a series of works from a 35 year period at the Poetry House at Ledbury – I called this exhibition Poets in the Landscape and it gave me the opportunity to see drawings and paintings from as far back as 1989. It was encouraging to find that they still packed a punch. Ledbury Poetry has now moved on from presenting a well known poetry festival annually in July to a year round operation in their own premises – what was known as the Elizabeth Barrett Browning Institute and was the local library at one stage.
I have a painting, Crows in the September Orchard, in the Royal West of England Academy Open which runs until January 2025 at their galleries in Bristol.
And I have 3 works in an exhibition at Quay Arts on the Isle of Wight in their Portfolio exhibition during October and November, which is a group show of past and present tutors on their well regarded Portfolio course.
So it has been a very busy year so far and I am looking forward to returning to the studio to make new work. I always find it difficult to concentrate when there are exhibitions going on.
I am having some problems with downloading photographs but will try and post some relevant images.

13 October, 2024

This solo exhibition at Art First, St Mary’s Walk, Lambeth, SE11 4UA opened on 9 April. The title is a phrase borrowed from Geoffrey Hill and I wanted it to convey an idea of the resonance, memories and associations to be found in the landscapes in which we live. Most of the works in this exhibition are of the country around the Worcestershire spa town of Great Malvern, my home for the last 27 years. There are a number of paintings of the orchard, 5 miles away and just over the border in Herefordshire which we have slowly planted during that time with old local varieties of apples and pears. This was mainly done through a scheme operated by Herefordshire Council to replace the many orchards grubbed up by more commercially minded farmers.

One painting, Gascony Pastoral, is of the hill top town of Lectoure which is between Toulouse and Bordeaux, a little south of Agen. We have visited this beautiful area twice now and the rolling well farmed countryside and the town on its hill reminded me of the classical pastoral paintings of Claude Lorrain, who has been a source of inspiration to me over many years.

This coming week I shall be in the gallery on Wednesday, 8 May from 5 to 7.30 pm and on Thursday, 9 May from 4 to 6.30 pm for the Finissage of the exhibition. Please come along if you can.

4 May, 2024

This exhibition was reprised at Elmslie House in Malvern for a week at the end of October/early November as part of the annual Autumn in Malvern Festival. The first showing was in the summer of 2022 in Ludlow and was organised by Richard Gilbert, who had the original idea of a group show of artists making work about a hill which was special to them. This year the artists were Helen Arthur, Adrienne Craddock, Richard Gilbert, Andy Johnson, Kathryn Moore and me. Here Helen, Adrienne and Richard are hanging my drawing The Beautiful View, which takes in the range of the Malverns towards the Worcester Beacon from the top of Chances Pitch near the British Camp.

We had lots of visitors and it was a worthwhile project which possibly may be repeated in future years. If so I might turn my attention to North Hill which has featured in earlier paintings.

6 December 2023

The exhibition Rain, Wind and Change is now open in the South Cloister of Worcester Cathedral and runs until 21 May.

We were not allowed to touch the ancient walls of the Cloister so hanging the large drawings was a challenge – Angus Macdonald devised an ingenious solution using builders fencing panels. It was an untried idea but fortunately it worked very well.

The Private View on 3 May was preceded by Choral Evensong in the Cathedral. Canon Kimberly said a few words of welcome, The Very Reverend Peter Atkinson, Dean of Worcester, was present and Catherine Swire read her poem Chantry Song. We drank local perry, cider, apple juice and Malvern water which all came from the surrounding countryside. It was simple, stylish and how I wanted it.

On Saturday, 20 May Catherine Swire and I will have an informal discussion about poetry and painting at a free event. If you would like to come along meet in the Chapter House at 11 am.

Here is Cathy reading her poem with young Max Martin stealing the show.

10 May, 2023

This will be the venue for my next exhibition: the South Cloister at Worcester Cathedral. The exhibition opens on 3rd May and runs until 21st May.

The project has its roots in SOIL, a volume of poems by Catherine Swire which was published in October 2021 by The Artel Press, Liverpool. The poems and associated essays consider the layers of trauma, history and human intervention in the landscape of the Herefordshire/Worcestershire borders.

I have mainly concentrated on two of the poems – Chantry Song and The Maker. Chantry Song refers to the exquisite tomb in the Cathedral of Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII. He died at the age of 15 at Ludlow Castle a few months after his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Henry VII was devastated as Arthur was intended to become the embodiment of the Tudor dynasty. He had the elaborate tomb carved in London and sent up to Worcester Cathedral. Eventually the crown passed to the ‘spare’, Henry VIII.

The other poem The Maker refers to Richard Twygge who with Thomas Wodeshawe had a workshop in the grounds of Great Malvern Priory. They were responsible for much of the exceptionally beautiful medieval stained glass in both Great Malvern Priory and Little Malvern Priory which is a few miles to the West. Both were originally Benedictine monasteries which were dismantled by Henry VIII.

Download the exhibition catalogue

The South Cloister at Worcester Cathedral is the perfect setting for this body of work. There will be three large charcoal landscape drawings and 3 figure drawings plus portrait studies for the figures and three small paintings of the Black Worcester Pear.

I shall post more information nearer the time.

16 March, 2023

Rather out of sync chronologically, here are some images of the third joint exhibition with my sister, the potter Molly Attrill, in the Clayden Gallery at Quay Arts on the Isle of Wight, which ran from June 18 to July 9. We have very diverse practices but somehow our work hangs well together.

Molly is pictured with her friend and fellow potter Gregory Tingay, who is now Artistic Director of Studio Pottery London and was once a Benedictine monk at Quarr Abbey on the Island.

12 September 2022

This charcoal drawing is 32 x 48 ins. It was included in Six Artists in search of the Perfect Hill at Ludlow (July to September 2022). It is a view of the Malvern Hills looking North from a point at the top of Chances Pitch, which is a long hill leading up to the British Camp from Ledbury. Long before I came to live in Malvern I would pass by in the car and always seized the chance to look across at this breathtakingly beautiful panorama of the hills receding into the distance, an idyllic view of an English pastoral landscape.

10 September 2022

This exhibition opened in mid July at Ludlow Assembly Rooms and ran until September 3. I was invited to join by Richard Gilbert, who had the original idea that six of us should choose our ‘perfect hill’. Mine was rather inevitably the Worcester Beacon which rises to the highest point of the Malvern Hills above where we live in Great Malvern. Unfortunately illness intervened during the run and I was not able to publicise the show as much as I had anticipated. At one point I was hospitalised for a few days and it was very pleasing that I could see ‘the sunlit uplands’ of the Worcester Beacon from my hospital bed.
I contributed a large charcoal drawing ‘The Beautiful View’ (in next post) and some small Sepia ink drawings plus 3 paintings. Sometimes the Beacon was centre stage and at others viewed from a distance.

10 September 2022

I am preparing to hang this exhibition next week in the Clayden Gallery at Quay Arts. This is the third collaboration with my sister, the potter Molly Attrill. Our first was in 2017 with FROM ROCKEN END TO BINNEL when we focussed on the small stretch of coastline on the southernmost tip of the Isle of Wight where we grew up. We followed this in 2019 with POTTER AND PAINTER, which had less of a prescribed theme but still retained a feeling of similar preoccupations explored through our different practices. CLAY FIRE PAPER PAINT is also a free association of our individual subject matter. I have gathered together drawings and paintings from different times and places with a connecting thread of relationships between landscape, memory and the natural world.
I will post images once we have completed the hang. The opening party is on Saturday, 18 June from 2 – 4 pm in the Clayden Gallery at Quay Arts and the exhibition runs until July 9.

9 June 2022

The Spring Exhibition at Campden Gallery, Chipping Campden, Glos, opens on Saturday 2 April and runs until Sunday 24 April. A number of my paintings and several small ink drawings are on show, along with works by four other artists. More information can be found at www.campdengallery.co.uk

1 April 2022

On Saturday, October 23, Catherine Swire’s debut volume of poems, SOIL, was launched at the Barrett Browning Institute, home of the Ledbury Poetry Festival. The poems are about the landscape around the Malvern Hills, its history of trauma and human intervention over many centuries. I have been inspired to start a body of work using the poems as a source. I do not see myself as illustrating the poems but using them as a bridge to connect things seen with things remembered or imagined. I have worked in this way at intervals over the years – indeed my exhibiting career began when a series of charcoal drawings based on the beekeeping poems of Sylvia Plath were included in a significant exhibition at Ikon gallery in Birmingham in 1991. One of my drawings, Eastnor Obelisk, was exhibited at the BBI on Saturday and will remain there until November 2 along with sketchbooks and associated source material.
I am also interested in the figures in Catherine’s landscape and have been working on a drawing of Prince Arthur, who is buried in an exquisite tomb in Worcester Cathedral. I will post an image shortly. I would like to do something on Edward V, one of the princes who disappeared into the Tower and who appears in a medieval stained glass window in Little Malvern Priory. The glassmakers Richard Twygge and Thomas Woodshawe had a workshop in the vicinity of Great Malvern Priory and were clearly highly skilled. Their Magnificat window in Great Malvern Priory was a gift from Henry VII and includes an image of Prince Arthur.

26 October 2021